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7 quick takes....
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- It’s just before ten and the sun is hot and
strong. We are sitting outside at our picnic table on the porch. I’m grateful
for the shade because without it, it would be too hot. The girls are drawing.
Ducks, unicorns, stars and more ducks. I am planning to draw too. Draw the
pictures from the past week. Not with my pencil (I’m pretty useless at that)
but with words so that the images in my head can be shared and remembered.
- I’ll start with this and then shut up about the
virus that is controlling everybody’s thoughts and behaviour. There is enough
written about it and I don’t need to add more. But last week, the day we knew
would come, came. The first positive test in the country. Not one but three.
And the day after that another one. So that’s that. For a very long time,
Malawi was one of the few countries without infections but now it’s been added
to the very long list of countries who have them. Not much has changed since.
The people I have talked with don’t seem too nervous. It’s another disease that
can kill you on the already very long list of things that can kill you in a
country that doesn’t have adequate recourses to deal with any of them. There is
a lack of money, and a government that seems very keen to make most money fall
into the laps of themselves and their relatives. That’s why, for once, I was
really positively surprised by the latest speech from the president. He
announced that he, and all the government ministers are taking a 10% wage cut
for the next three months in order to raise money that can help the country to
fight the virus.
- Have you seen the tiger in our kitchen? The
snake in our garden and the horse on our porch? Those augmented reality animals
are quite popular and I understand why, It’s really fun to see them show up in
your house (If you don’t know what I am talking about, google an animal, click
on the ‘show in 3d’ button and follow the steps. It’s fun!). Last week we even
had a monkey in our house, but I wish that was an AR version too. If it would
have been, the girls would still have all the windows in their room intact. The
monkey sneaked in through an open door and stole some apples from the fruit
bowl. He then got startled and ran upstairs. There he tried to go through the
closed windows and in his panic, he broke a few. He hurt his legs in the
process and the end result was a messy room with glass and monkey blood all
over….I don’t mind the monkeys outside but inside my house I would like to
stick to the AR version of animals.
- If the world was normal, we would have been in
Cape Town right now and gone to Namibia on Friday to celebrate Easter with
Hartmut’s parents. But the world isn’t normal and we are here. Sophie isn’t too
sad about that. ‘You need to celebrate the holidays with the people you love
the most, and I love you and our ducks the most so I am happy we will be
together with Easter’. She is planning on crafting an Easter breakfast out of
duck food and I would not be surprised if their house will get some
decorations. An Easter egg hunt in our garden will be fairly easy though. Both
our mamma duck and the chicken are laying eggs (yup, the rooster has found out
he is a chicken) so they are easy to find ;-)
- It was last week. My stomach was upset in a way
that made me have to visit the bathroom every ten minutes. I decided that it
was best to not do too much. Overdoing things when your body tells you to slow
down doesn’t seem a wise thing in times like this. It’s never wise, but now it
seems even more vital to keep your body as health as possible. So between the
frequent bathroom visits, I just relaxed, read and watched the girls. And I
realised how happy I am, how blessed (don’t like the word as it’s overused, but
it’s true). Sophie and Doris played. The whole day. And I observed. Their play
meandered between the craft corner, the book shelf and the lawn in front of the
house rather organically. They never had to agree on what would happen next,
where they would go or what they would play with as they just understood each
other. Their play reminded me of the flowing of a river, the two girls being
two drops of water in that same stream. Moving together to wherever the river
took them next, sometimes close, then further apart but always together in the
same direction. They play is driven by an urgency to learn and to explore but
in the same time executed as if they have all the time in the world. And
actually, they have. And because of it, they will move forward, and they will
learn. I will watch and I will see them grow while I pat dry the trail on my
cheek that’s left by a tear of pride and happiness.
- Any reason to celebrate is a good one. If it
was up to the girls, we would have a birthday every week, pretend or real. For
us, for the animals, for the toys and for anyything else that seems worth
celebrating. So when there is an actual reason to celebrate, a real one, we
have no choice. This Sunday was palm Sunday, and what better reason to
celebrate is there, than to celebrate the Easter-period to the fullest?! The
party that's not just a party but a time to remember that death is dead, and
love has won! Especially in times like these…. So we decorated crosses and
baked chicken (duck)-shaped breads and did a parade on the beach. We celebrate
life and the bringer of that life! Especially now.
- We don’t have many plans for the week, but
what’s new about that? We like it that way. Although, this week is a very
special with Good Friday and the Easter weekend coming up. We will read, craft
and bake in preparation for that and I am already so excited!
