7 quick takes...

Good morning! It’s 6:23 as I start typing this but it doesn’t feel early. Hartmut has just left for work, the girls are outside playing with the ducks and the sun is already high and hot. We never set an alarm but every morning we wake up with the sun. Our room faces sunrise and because we don’t have curtains we get a fantastic lightshow. It is the most restful way to start the day.
It must have been the calmest weekend we have had in a long time. Hartmut and I were both not feeling great and in order to not get a full on flu, we took it very easy. We took lots of naps, made simple but nutritious meals and just did not do much. I think it worked, we are both feeling a little better and have enough energy for the new week.
Sophie was pretty keen to get out and play with the ducks because she wasn’t allowed to do so the whole weekend. Sophie and Doris are getting a little overconfident with the ducks and seem to forget that they are real animals, which can feel pain as well. On Friday, Sophie put one of the ducklings on top of the duck house, apparently because she wanted to see if the duck could fly. I am pretty sure they can’t since their wings are not much more than fluff covered little protrusions at the moment. Anyway, the duck started to panic and jumped through an open window next to the roof. Unfortunately, that window led to a store room that isn’t ours but the landlord’s and he won’t be here anytime soon because he lives in Lilongwe. Leaving the duck in there was no option. That’s how it happened that I googled things like ‘How to open a lock with a paperclip’. The internet had beautiful solutions but they did not work. (or I am not clever enough, that’s an option too.) In the end we had to get a saw and Hartmut cut open the lock to free the duck who seemed unharmed from his big fall and pretty happy to be reunited with his friends. And sorry landlord, we bought a new padlock; you’ll get the key when you get here.
We have started a history theme at school and we are loving all the stories. It’s a big theme and I realise that we could be studying history for the rest of our lives without ever feeling like we have learned it all, so we are just scratching the surface. At the moment we are doing a bit of an overview of the different time periods (Stone age, Greek and Roman empire, medieval times etc.) but the girls requested that we mainly focus on princesses, castles and knight. I always find a lot of ideas and materials and pinterest which is great but also takes a lot of time. A few weeks ago I bought a subscription for twinkl, a British website with resources for (home)teachers. It’s amazing and I am loving the wide variety of things that I find on there. It has made it much easier to have resources that match the questions that the girls ask and it also helps me to stay focused when I prep because we all know the rabbit hole that pinterest can be. Today we are going to look at the knight’s armour and craft a knight ourselves. All with twinkl resources. So easy!
The ducks can be relieved as our new animal friends, who will be considerably less fragile than them, will arrive this week. Then they won’t be the only ones who have to endure the girls love… Hartmut has been working hard to make a nice house for the piglets and if all goes well, they will arrive on the boat on Wednesday. We are excited!
I was looking at our calendar and realised that Christmas season is approaching soon! I am pretty sure that I would be more aware of that in other parts of the world, as shops are probably getting decorated, Christmas trees are appearing in public spaces and people are counting down to the holidays. Well, all that doesn’t happen here. One of the things that I noticed last year was how remarkably unremarkable Christmas day was in a Malawian village. No big build up, hardly any special food and no decorations. We won’t decorate our house either but that’s not because we don’t feel like doing it but because we will be traveling to Namibia for the Christmas season. 5 weeks and a bit to go before the girls and I get on a plane. Hartmut will follow a few days later. We would have loved to go to the Netherlands too but because it has been so long since we were there, we don’t want to do that long and expensive journey for just two weeks (Hartmut won’t be able to get more leave) so that has to wait till the end of his project. Then we hope to come for a long-ish period to have more time to reconnect with everything and everybody. Something to look forward to in the next year.
Tomorrow we plan to go to Lilongwe and stay there for a night. It’s about time. The cupboards are pretty empty. Lilongwe isn’t that big but traffic is terrible as town planning did not really happen. As a result, I always plan too many stops and shops that I want to go to to buy food and supplies. Unfortunately there is not a nice one-stop-has-it-all mall or supermarket and we have to go to different places to get our things. Oh well, it’s a change of scenery and there are nice restaurants so we will enjoy it anyway. Have a great week!