7 quick takes...
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| It's hot and the fan is almost always on. Fortunately Doris has found away to switch it on by herself. |
- Good morning! A little later than usual because I’m a little slower than usual. The reason? I went to bed a little late. I’ll blame our wonderful neighbours (they read my blog, so I need to be nice about them, hello Charlie and Dorothy!) where we went for a braai. They are 2,5 times our age, but we always enjoy hanging out and because they always invite us, I believe they do the same.
- ‘Do you know what happened?’ If you had seen Sophie this morning, you would have probably gotten that question. After that she would have opened her mouth to show you what exactly happened. It started on Tuesday with a first wobbly tooth and ended yesterday with some blood, a disappointingly small tooth in her hand and a gap in her mouth. Well, that’s probably not where it ends because she has already discovered another wobbly tooth. It feels big, she feels big. I remember when my own teeth were wobbly and now my daughter is old enough to go through the same.
- Sophie is not the only big girl in our house. The next days are the last days that we have a four-year-old. Doris will turn 5 on Thursday. She has decided that she only wants to have a little party now, and a big party with a real cake when we are in Namibia. I am rather happy about that because this week is busy! It’s the last week before we leave and there are a few projects that I want to finish so that I can really enjoy the holidays. In Namibia, we can give Doris and her birthday the attention that she deserves, and we get to celebrate it with family which is extra special.
- One of the things that I need to do before we leave is going through all stories that I captured last week. I went to the Northern Region to document stories for ‘Red een Kind’ (a Dutch NGO). It’s something that I love doing but sorting through a digital mountain of 1500 pictures and a notebook filled with notes seems a bit daunting now. But it also makes me happy. After not having had a camera for a big part of this year, I am enjoying photography even more and my new camera is not only very capable but also a joy to work, with. I feel so lucky that I get to do this.
- Because the place where I worked was far, I slept a night in a lodge. One of the perks of sleeping away from my family that I can sleep a little longer. I don’t enjoy sleeping in but just for once sleeping past 6:30 would be really nice, and I was looking forward to it. Perhaps it will happen next time ;-) - The first knock is very gentle. Just loud enough to wake me up from my sleep. I get a fright. Did I oversleep? Who is at the door? I check my phone; it’s only 5:30 am. Perhaps it wasn’t a real knock because who could possibly want to talk to me at this time? But then there is a knock again, this time louder. There must be somebody. But who? And why? I open the door and find a woman with a big bucket of water on her head. ‘For your morning shower’ she smiles. It’s kind. There is something wrong with the water in the lodge and the taps aren’t working. At least now I can take a bath and flush the toilet. It really is kind. But it would have been even kinder if she had asked me what time I would have liked my water ;-)
- The girls tell me that I should write about ducks and rain season because that’s interesting. They want to let you all know that we have 8 new ducklings that hatched on Friday and also that rain season hasn’t started yet, despite some very promising clouds on the horizon.
- The countdown is getting shorter. Next week this time we will already be in Lilongwe and hopefully have a negative PCR result in our hands because on Tuesday we hope to fly. I am not sure how much I will be blogging in the next weeks so if I don’t ‘see’ you any more, I wish you all a meaningful and nice festive season. For most people it will probably be very different from normal and I pray that you won’t feel lonely because of it. Fortunately there is nothing that can take away the reason why we celebrate Christmas and my hope is that you, despite everything, will find joy in that.
