Well, ok, Zane wasn't the only guest of honour - we had some of our neighbors and friends around, and had a great time together. Zane was just there as a male being to keep Chris company as the only other guy!
We've been having a series of dinner parties lately, and it's just been so much fun to have friends over to share a meal with.However, that evening, our drains stopped draining :(
So early on Saturday morning, Richard came over to see if he could help us. We realized it was a job that called for some African Duct Tape:
Seriously, Africans can fix absolutely anything with a bit of old tire inner tube. They use it to keep all sorts of things together and to repair everything from plumbing to cars to furniture. Amazing stuff. They even made shoes out of it, just like we make wallets and book covers out of duct tape.Unfortunately, the job is rather a bit bigger than just using a little "African Duct Tape", so it will require the other guys who work on the compound to do a bit of digging through the drain pipes tomorrow, but for now, Richard got it draining a bit, and then fixed the leak.
Here's what our little drain spout looks like now, for those of you handy-dandies out there:
Unfortunately, in the process of trying to "help", I stepped on a bougainvillia thorn! Ouch. It went right through my shoe and up into my foot. Oh, it hurt. It even drew blood. But once Richard was finished fixing the drain, he had a look at the bottom of my foot and confirmed that the thorn had come cleanly out and didn't leave a bit in my foot to fester. But if my foot starts festering sometime in the next few days, at least ya'll will know what it's from... anyways, I don't have any photos of my bloody foot, most of you will be pleased to know. And I can walk again normally today, so I don't think it will require a medical evacuation anywhere :( But because of my whining and complaining about all the blood and pain, Jackie brought me breakfast and coffee whilst I sat soaking my foot... so I did get some sympathy :)The rest of my day was quite productive - we have a workshop this coming week, so I was busy organizing handouts and doing all that sort of stuff to get ready.
In the afternoon, I went out to visit Richard's chickens again, which was a really nice break from being in the city. Of course, you don't go anywhere with Richard without talking to all the neighbors, which was quite a lot of fun. I do think my Arabic is improving, and I can start to follow some of the conversations that people are having around me. I'm sure I get the details wrong - tenses and references and things are still sometimes a bit confusing for me, and of course a LOT of the vocabulary is missing, but I'm at the point where I can pick out some of the important words and start stringing some ideas together.
At one point, a girl walking by asked if she could trade skirts with me, and I was even able to respond with a bit of a joke to her in Arabic! So I was rather happy about that - but it's exhausting to have to concentrate so hard just to pick up a few straws of conversation.
We also saw the chief of the area again, and he asked when I was coming to build my house out there. Richard told him that I won't come live there because there's no internet :) I agreed.
I did bring my camera again with me, and I got some really nice photos out there:
These are hibiscus bulbs which are going to be dried to become tea leaves.
I think the neighbors all thought I was crazy, going around taking photos of the plants and chickens, but I'm really enjoying having some time to take some nice photos, and actually seeing some new things which are worthy of nice photos! (Well, at least I think they're nice photos :D)
Since it's suddenly gotten really hot here again, we went in the coolish part of the day - just before sundown. And we got a view of a beautiful sunset. With all the dust in the air, the colors were just amazing.
And then this evening, we worshipped the creator of all these beautiful scenes to the sounds of... get this... BAGPIPES!
This is our Sunday evening fellowship, and we were led by Peter, who plays the bagpipes. It was great fun! I love the group, and we always have a great time together, worshipping and sharing together. But phew, all this fun has tired me right out... so it's time to sleep so I can be prepared for our Writer's Workshop tomorrow!
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