Around the House

As I was walking home late yesterday afternoon after class, there were about 5 kids in our yard. They were the neighbors and had been playing kickball or soccer.  But they were watching the turtle that had been their pet for the last week, which had awakened and walked into our yard.  As you can see, this is not an ordinary turtle, but probably a tortoise, given that we are far away from the sea or any water except for the small river nearby. Our neighbor, Dr. Belai, told us it had wandered into their yard last week and that they had been feeding it and giving it water. He guessed its age at 300 years.  The tortoise moves remarkably fast. I was taking a photo of it and it was coming towards me, without apparent fear, in an inexorable way. I dodged aside! You can guess at its size from the hose. It is big enough for a child to sit on.  Ella, would you like to do that?  They are not too unusual, I gather, because I spoke to another woman about it and she said she knew of another one on the other side of the campus. But it is pretty fun for me to see in our yard.

Today is a busy day for Jim. He preached in chapel this morning, then went to his two hour class, then in the afternoon he gives an hour and a half lecture, and finishes the day with his text study on the internet, beaming it off to his class in the US. Meanwhile I will walk up to the post office to mail some letters, make lunch since Addis doesn’t come today, go to my English class at 1:30 for an hour, listen to Jim’s lecture, then go back to English class from 5 to 6:30.

I was going to take a shower and wash my hair this morning, but we had no water.  Fortunately there are buckets with saved water around the house so we could make coffee and brush teeth. Now I checked a couple of hours later and there is still no water here, though I saw the gardener next door watering flowerbeds with his hose.  I was told if the water goes off during the week, it usually comes on again soon, but if it is a weekend, it will probably be off for three days.  Let’s hope that isn’t the case today!

Addis makes coffee for us in the morning, if we are home, and then we drink it out on the front patio in the sunshine. She makes popcorn to go along with it, as is typical here. Don't know why, except that when she roasts the beans before preparing the coffee, the pan gets hot (the beans pop like popcorn) and so maybe they want to take advantage of the hot pan for popcorn.  So the photo of her and me is while we are having morning coffee and popcorn.  The last photo is of some little girls in the neighborhood on their way home from school.  They remind me of my granddaughters Ella and Willa, because I think these little ones are about the same age.

Love to all, Carolyn