Random Updates

Phew. I’m tired.

I wish I had more time to write this week, but internet time is short and there’s work to be done so I’ll have to try to catch you up quickly on what’s new around Namumu with a few short updates

My schedule has changed quite a bit in the past two weeks. Mubita, our kapenta fishing sales clerk is still away on leave (more on his situation later), so I’ve been especially busy as of late. We started fishing last Tuesday, April 14th, so with Mubita gone I’ve had to high-tail it to the harbor every morning to sell the night’s catches. The boats usually arrive around 7:00 am or somewhere shortly thereafter, so I’ve have to set out from my house around 6:30. Since the garden beds need to be watered early and I’m never sure when I’ll get back to Namumu, I’ve been getting up around 5:30 to water (I’d assign one of my little Namumu minions to water but, I have to be honest, they all suck at it…just have to do that one myself). Since the boats go out every night for 24 days there’s no break on the weekends. I’m worn out.

The Namumu children are happy and content as always. They’re still on break from school, so these days they just play around and talk all day. School should be starting in a week or so, so it will eventually be back to work for them.

The cholera scare has died down, thankfully, so thanks to all who prayed for that one.

Of course, now our water pump is broken, so if you could switch your prayers from cholera to our water pump that would be just dandy. We’re trying to make other short-term arrangements, so there’s no need to panic. Still, prayer would be nice.

My little naked next-door neighbour, Innocent, wandered into my kitchen again the other day for another naked dinner party. This time he didn’t just watch me, though. This time he pooped on my floor. Yes, you read that correctly. I would have informed his mother but as she speaks zero English and I haven’t yet learned how to say, “Your 1 ½ year old took a dump on my kitchen floor” in Tonga I just cleaned it up and kept quiet. Innocent has been banned from my kitchen indefinitely.

Bread has made up about 90% of my diet recently. The bakery in Siavonga is the bomb dot com. Once our vegetables start coming in I’m planning on getting a little bit healthier, but for now I’ll stick with my bread, nsima and eggs.

The dogs have been staying out of the garden, but I think they got together and decided that since they couldn’t tick me off that way they’d have to find another way. They found it. Now they’ve started howling outside of my window around 4 am. I learned my lesson last week, though, so I’ve stayed away from murderous thoughts.

So, all is still well here in Siavonga. I’m hoping to post another update in the next day or two about selling kapenta, I think you’ll find it interesting, so stay tuned. Until then, take care.