September?

Really?  Is it September already?  Sometimes I wonder if facebook is good for me - everyone is writing about going back to school, about the change in the weather, about the end of summer and all the fun they had on their holidays... makes me miss the turn of the seasons, you know?  Ok, yes, we have "hot and dry" and "pretty hot and wet" seasons around here.  Two seasons.  And now that I've been here for a few years, I can definitely tell the turn of the seasons.  In fact, there have been a few sunny days this past week where I can definitely feel the change in the season is around the corner.  The season where the sun beats down on you like there's no atmosphere between you and that fiery ball of burning gasses in the sky is coming upon us!

And yet, I'm still hopeful that it will stay cool enough for my baby pumpkin plants to thrive long enough for just a pumpkin or two to pop out.  They're growing each and every day, and it's fun to watch them grow.  But they're certainly nowhere near being a "vine" yet.  Still little seedlings.  They have a LONG way to go before they're actual pumpkin vines.  At home, there's frost.  Over here, I'm still waiting for my seedlings to grow before it gets too hot for them!

There's been a lot of work to do here this past week.  Really, I'm missing Jackie, who's gone back to the UK for several months.  I had forgotten how many people just pop into our office, looking for things like books in various languages or asking about training programs or information about various languages etc.  It's really interesting to see who pops in and why and what they're doing - but time consuming!  I also went over to a government office today to meet with some folks there about teacher training.  I've been trying to get a meeting for a few weeks now - in fact, this was the third time I hiked over there to meet this guy.  Third time's a charm, though, so after waiting for only an hour, we had our meeting.  And it was a great meeting!  Seems the time is right to bring up the issue that I brought up today.  But it could end up meaning a huge amount of work in the coming month, including some travel to a different town, which I'm really not sure how I'm going to fit it all in, alongside everything else that's already planned for this coming month!

I did evade a trip to a different area with the government folks, though.  My colleague in the Ministry there was really, really keen to take me to his home area.  I think he was already counting the cows he would get for me there!  While waiting for this meeting this afternoon, my conversation with my colleague there revolved not around our plans for teacher training or materials development, but about marriage, cows, and "production".  Again, not production of materials or teacher training programs, but the sort of production that comes after one is married and the cows have changed hands.  Once again, I was referred to as an "8-baby woman"!  Gotta love having a good set of "child-bearing hips" in a culture like this :)

For the moment, though, I think I will concentrate on producing pumpkins, and will be more than happy if I can become an 8-pumpkin woman!