7 quick takes
- Good afternoon! The girls are listening to an audiobook which gives me a gap to write a blog. Normally I write it first thing in the morning, but today I walked to the market instead. Hartmut has a bit of a sore throat and the policy at his work is that you work from home, however small your complaint is. Because of corona, I don’t really leave the compound much with the girls, but they could stay with Hartmut and I could go and get some carrots. I wouldn’t have called it an exciting outing if things were different, but it is what it is. It felt great to be all by myself (it had been over two months) and to walk through the village. Which I hadn't done for a very long time. I am grateful for moments like this.
- I am not very screamish when it comes to spiders and insects. As a result, Hartmut can never show off his bravery by taking away a spider or millipede while I stand on a chair with fear in my eyes. But this weekend he was lucky as he got an opportunity to show that he is not afraid. There are many snakes around and this time a snake had made himself comfortable in the duck house. Probably a bit too comfortable. He had eaten so much that his belly was too fat to fit through the holes of the chicken wire. So when we came closer he had no way to escape. Because we didn’t think it was the best idea anyway to leave him there with all our birds, and because it was also a bit unlikely that he would find the only gap he could fit through (the door) all by himself, Hartmut took a rake and a bucket and caught the snake in a calm and collected (albeit clumsy) manner. We got to have a good look and take some pictures before we released him in the woods in a far corner of our garden. And don’t worry, it was a brown house snake, so even if he does come back, we won’t be upset as he loves snacking on the creatures that love snacking on our food; mice and rodents.
- Talking about our food; the supply is pretty low. We haven’t been to Lilongwe in a while and the fridge and freezer are as good as empty. It’s not that we will go hungry, because I can find some vegetables and basics like beans, flour, oil and sugar on the market. During the year on the lodge, that was basically the kind of food we used to live on. But now that Lilongwe is a little closer, and we have a more money to spend, we have gotten used to luxuries like butter, chocolate and cheese. Suddenly, doing without those things feels a litte hard and it’s time to go and get a restock. We were supposed to go on Saturday but Hartmut had to work. The plan is now to go tomorrow and it will be nice to buy food but also to get some city delights. That means ice cream and a playground for the girls and a chai latte and big salad for me. I cannot wait!
- ‘Can you please tell me a joke?’
‘But I don’t know any.’
Doris is not convinced. The truth is that I don’t really like jokes and I don’t feel like telling them.
‘Just look on your phone. Internet knows many jokes.’ The girl is right and she knows it. I google ‘child-friendly jokes’ and tell the first few. Doris laughs and I think she is satisfied, so I put my phone away. ‘Mam, did you hear how I laughed? It was like ‘hehehe’ and not ‘hahaha’. When I laugh ‘hahaha’ it’s because the joke is funny. But when I laugh ‘hehehe’ it means that I laugh because I know it’s a joke but I don’t understand why it’s funny.’
I try to explain the ones I told, but explaining a joke definitely doesn’t make it funnier so instead I ask if Doris cannot tell me some jokes that she finds funny. Asking a four-year-old to tell jokes is the worst decision ever. Always. I am now treated to 30 minutes of riddles that are impossible to solve and not even half funny (It’s yellow and sits in a tree- a spider banana. It’s red and delicious — a cake that looks like a strawberry. Etc) but Doris is laughing until the tears roll over her cheeks. I guess it is worth it then. - There is more animal news. Great because it helps me to fill seven takes in times that little happens. Anyway… animal news. I told you that our male duck had decided that it was time to be emancipated, and so he took turns with mamma duck to sit on the eggs. Neither the internet, nor the experts could confirm if this is normal behaviour and comfort me by saying that the eggs would not be harmed. So when it took abnormally long for the eggs to hatch, I had kind of given up on them and felt sorry for mamma duck who was wasting away on eggs that wouldn’t result into anything. Until last week. Suddenly there were some cracked eggs and I heard a squeaking noise from underneath the mamma duck. Nine more cute little ducks to watch and to keep us from getting bored. We are happy, but that can’t be said about everybody. Our two male ducks are getting bored now that all their females are occupied with little ones. The moment one of them walks for one second away from her little ones, they come running in an aggressive attempt to mate. They are never very successful though, as the female ducks aren’t keen. poor male ducks. I have even found the two of them trying to mate each other.
- I don’t know what to cook for supper. I made a nice soup for lunch, and I am still feeling very full, which is also not helpful because it makes it hard to get excited about any recipe. Suggestions anyone? Otherwise, we might just eat toast and left over soup, like we had for lunch. Nothing wrong with that. It’s nutritious, already available and tasty. I might just do that. It also means that I can spend the nicest time of the day, during sunset on the beach. Double win.
- So, now that the need for cooking is out of the way, I will quickly select some pictures that i took this week and upload this blog to maximise the amount of time I have on the beach. The beach really has been our saving grace during this COVID-19 season. We go there every day and it never gets boring. Have a great new week!
