7 quick takes...

S'Mores factory

We have renovated this chalet over the past few weeks

 1. Good morning! I am still in bed while the world around me slowly wakes up. I can see the sun rise from our big open windows, the birds twitch and the lake laps calmly against the rocks. It looks like it's gonna be a beautiful day. (I'll stay quiet about the mouse that I can hear scruffling in the room because writing about it is acknowledging it and I am doing my very best to ignore him because a year here has taught me that fighting mice is a losing battle when you live in the jungle.) Next to me is Doris, still sleeping. She starts most days in our bed as there is always a point in the night where she decides that our bed is better than hers. And because her bed is only a meter away from ours the switch is easily made. Three in a bed makes it pretty crowded but Doris doesn't care as she loves the closeness. Yesterday Sophie suggested that we should hang a sign on our bed 'no entry for Doris' but Doris told us that it would be pointless because she would just ignore it. So we know that a sign won't work but I hope that, when we move to a house where they have their own room, she will stay a bit more in her own bed. We love cuddles but especially Hartmut loses a lot of sleep with that wriggly body in our bed.
 2. We had a good week with lots of play and little 'school'. I love having this freedom of being able to do teaching when the girls want it but also to give them time to play for as long as they want when they need it because I believe that, at least till the age of 5, play is the single most important teacher for children. I trust that they know when their brains are ready for new information and sometimee they need me to fill the gap but often the knowledge lies in their play. It's fascinating to see what the girls come up with and how they involve everything around them in their play. I can see how their hands and minds are learning concepts and motor skills as they mix water and sand, measure contents, build houses and roads and negotiate with each other where their game should take them next. Often I look at the clock and realise that they have been playing non stop for 3 or 4 hours; I am so proud of these two resilient and creative girls who can create entire worlds out of nothing.
 3. Don't worry, Sophie and Doris are no little angels who only play together in peace. They fight. And sometimes they fight ugly with pinching and screaming and pulling hair. And sometimes their methods are a little different.  Doris is angry with sophie. To voice her anger she gets a paper and a pencil. "Look Sophie, I am drawing you." Her little hand moves fast over the paper. "And look, your dress is ugly and weird." Her pen makes big exaggerated lines ."And it's an ugly colour. Because it's white. White is boring." Sophie looks. Doris' strategy works. The drawing is making Sophie upset but not upset enough yet. Doris continues; around 'sophie' she makes short sharp lines. "And you are in the rain and you don't have an umbrella." Now she draws a second figure, a big dress in red and pick and purple. An unbrella. "And this is me. In a nice dress. And I have an umbrella but I don't share it with you." That hits the mark. Sophie starts crying. "I'll never again play with you ever. And never share with you. And when it's my birthday you don't get cake!" Now Doris is upset too. No cake on a birthday is the worst insult.
 4. Some evenings are perfect. So perfect that you want to carefully pick them up and wrap them in some tissue paper so that you can relive the original version because recreating it will never live up to the expectation.  We had one of those evenings this week. A perfect evening sky, a fire on the rock, marshmallows on sticks and Smores with stale biscuits. And when we were stickly from marshmallows and chocolate sauce we all stripped down to our underwear and jumped in the lake while our evening meal slowly prepared itself in a potjie on the fire. Does it get better than that?
 5. One day between Christmas and new years we had a big rain and a flashflood as a result of that.  The flood was pretty destructive and one of the things it broke was our water supply. There ia a water board in the village who are supposed to fix it but at that time all the men in the village spend all their time on top of the hill; building the cell phone tower. We understood that and waited patiently while we showered in the lake and lifted heavy buckets of water up to our house to wash and flush the toilet. When the tower finished more than a month ago we still waited. Maybe the men needed a break after all their hard work. They probably did and the break lasted a month until this week they finally got themselves together to fix the pipes. And now, after two months of daily gym (buckets with water are heavy!) we have water again. Hurray!
 6. My first shower in two months was an interesting one. I wasn't alone in the shower but had a spectater. Although, I should not call her that. When I undressed she politely turned her head towards the corner so that I could shower without being seen. Marci and Celia, two volunteers who have stayed at the lodge for more than a month are leaving and bought for the staff a chicken to say 'thank you'. However, on the day they bought it there was not much staff around and to give eberyone their share was better to keep it for a few days later. Without a fridge the best way to keep meat fresh is by leaving it in its original packaging, with a beating heart. So that's how our shower temporarily turned into a chicken coop.
 7. It's time to get this day going. Doris is wide awake and singing sings, Sophie is awake but not yet ready to admit it and Hartmut is already out to make sure that the night staff did their duties and the day staff start their day well. I better get going too. Have a great week!

We did some baking. When we first got here I never thought it would be possible to do this but our stone oven is amazing. We made bread, burger buns, cupcakes and apple crumble. Yum!

We got to eat the delicious fruit from our delicious monster.