7 quick takes

Besties, despite some temporary tooth-envy

1. Good morning! Hartmut is at work, Doris is playing with Lego, Sophie is sitting next to me and working on a PowerPoint and I have loads to do, but will quickly pause that, to write a blog.
2. My to-do list is long, and I won’t have to look for things to fill my time this week (not that I am ever bored). I have been away for the whole week last week to capture photographs, stories and movies for ‘Red een Kind’, a Dutch NGO that I have been doing work for. It was a long and intense week, but now that I am out of the field and back home, the actual work starts. Translating my almost illegible notes from interviews into readable stories, culling and editing the pictures and movies, and providing all the movies that are shot in Chitonga (the local language) with subtitles. You can imagine that six days of capturing stories results in A LOT of days of editing, so I have my work cut out.
3. It’s hard to miss the space race that the world's uber-rich have found themselves in. There is something about it that makes me furious. Although I am all for the advancement of science; I have a big problem with the way that this is happening now. Some crazy rich men are spending way too much money, just to boost their egos and one-up the others because they don’t seem to know what to do with all their wealth. If they gave me a bit of their time, I would have some suggestions. I am just back from a week of hearing stories  about kids who can’t go to school because the parents can’t afford their uniform (less than 3 euro) or, in even more tragic cases, are sent home because their parents did not have the money for a face mask (20 cent). And even when they go to school, they have to share the teacher with 200 other children, so what chance of learning something do they have anyway? The injustice of it all is impossible to accept, and it challenges me to do what I can to make the world a bit more fair.
4. One of the things that never fail to amaze me is how small a tooth is and, how big the gap is once a tooth is out. Not only in your own mouth, but also in the mouth of your children. Doris lost her first top tooth yesterday and the gap, and the change it has made in her face, is a lot bigger than you would assume from the size of the tooth. She is thrilled, I have to get used to this gappy smile on her new big-kid face.
5. One thing that made it extra sweet for Doris, and hard to swallow for Sophie, is that Doris has now overtaken her sister in the tooth-losing department. Doris has lost three, Sophie only two. And that’s cause for a serious identity crisis as an older sister.
6. Talking about identity crises as an older sister; when I was little, this day (the 19th of July) was always the day for that. Yesterday was my sister's birthday and my birthday is tomorrow.  Because we're less than a year apart, it always meant that on this day, we were both the same age. I still have vivid memories of how my dad would bring us to bed and say 'good night, my two eight-year-olds' or however old we were, and I hated it. I was the big sister, and being the same age as her felt like everybody around me was saying that I wasn't really that. Big deal, you know. 
7. The countdown is on. Just over two weeks before we move! The 'packed box' count is '1' at the moment, but that's OK because I don't think that we will need that much time for packing. It better be that way, because the girls and I are still going to Likoma for the weekend. My parents were supposed to come with us, and I am not going to write much about how hard it is that they won’t, because that just makes me sad. Now that they're no longer coming, we decided to still go as a painkiller and distraction. Anyway... have a good week and don't take yourself too serious!

The girls claim that the ducks and chickens are their babysitters when I am away. (Don't worry, they have somebody look after them ;-))

We found some good winter jackets in the second hand store, that we hopefully get to use in Europe sometime this year. Now the girls insist that they need to 'practise' to wear them.