My small group came over yesterday for a craft afternoon. This age group(8th graders) is so fun because they still really like projects like this.
I love the diversity of my group! Andrea (Dutch), Jenai (Irish), Christa (American), Randra (Madagascar), Jessi (Swiss), and Samael (Tanzanian). Hannah (Korean) wasn’t there. I wish I could tell you all the wonderful things these girls’ parents are doing throughout Tanzania, but this isn’t the place to write about it. HOPAC has only 8 boarding students and 3 of them are in my group!
Grace totally amazed me yesterday. She wanted to participate too, so she got set up at the table with pony beads and yarn, and she spent almost 2 hours stringing those beads! When she ran out and wanted more, we took all her beads off the string and she did it over again! Love the tongue–total concentration. 🙂
Her legs are finally long enough! Go, Gracie, Go!
(And yes, my daughter does does run around in just underwear a lot of the time. I admit it.)
I wash and reuse my zip-lock bags. Lots of times. According to past roommates (who shall remain nameless) and friends who now live in Long Beach (who shall remain nameless), this made me weird. Very weird.
But I was raised in Africa. You couldn’t buy zip-lock bags there. They were a luxury so you re-used them until they didn’t hold together anymore. So I did it in the States too—out of habit, I guess. Now I do it because I’m living in Africa again and I have to make my one box of bags last two years.
But this makes me Green, right? Now, I know I haven’t lived in the States for a while, but Green means Cool, right? Not weird? Definitely not weird.
Wash ‘em, stick ‘em on the wall to dry. Good as new.
As Grace would say, “Hip, Hip, Hooray!” The rains have come. Every day this week it has been raining, all day, every day. Tanzania has two seasons: the wet season and the dry season. Or you could call it the hot season and the hotter season. But this week, it has actually been cold! I mean, we’ve gotten down to a definite 73 degrees! Makes you want to snuggle up by the fire.
Rain makes the roads impossible and makes it virtually impossible to dry clothes. But I love the rain here! As I’ve mentioned before, we have no glass on our windows, only screens. So that means that I can hear, smell, “feel” the rain even while sitting in my house. And rain here has this lovely, tropical smell to it.
Hip, Hip, Hooray! The worst of the hot season is over. The next few months should be gorgeous.
Gil took these pictures with his cell phone from our car. We actually saw a guy with a canoe, giving people rides down the street on this day.
