Desert Gills

And here is more of a straight-on view. The porch is screened in and potentially very useful, though we often prefer the front door. Our vegetable garden is behind the house, but you can see even the front has plenty of trees and vegetation... thanks to our gardener's daily watering from well water. We are thankful to be safely back here after a very nice vacation with family in August.

KansasMom had requested a fuller view of our house, so here it is. It is not impressive by US standards, but we really appreciate our little house a lot. One friend says its 'the nicest on the compound' because it's stone and sits a little higher, thus availing itself of some slightly cooler air. I was also reading some data from visits to a clinic not too far from us and appreciated seeing some of their data on patients, just to put numbers to faces... 50% of households had a radio, 6% had running water, and 1-2% had a television. So we feel very blessed to have a radio, running water (yes, that's the slab over our septic tank in the foreground), and ... well, ok, we don't have a TV, but we have electricity and an internet-equipped computer, which is better... and anyway, there is a TV with extensive VHS collection in the community center. So we are blessed.

Well, my period of 'gwabranci,' is coming to an end and I haven't joined the guys for the daily soccer game as much as I had hoped to, but I have been able to finish some projects. That's 'widowerhood' for those of you learning Hausa at home, and it's a word I have definitely had cemented into my brain these two weeks. (When I said I'm a bachelor, they corrected me to say 'widower,' a more respected position here, and more accurate to my life station.) It's been a culturally educational experience. Hausa is a greeting-heavy culture - "How's the work?", "How's the rain?", "How's the family?" It amazes me the people who can fire off four questions as they walk past... though of course for someone you really know you should NOT just walk past. You need to stop and take a real interest in the answers even if you know all four of them will be 'fine.' This is sometimes a struggle for m...

Of course its gratifing to have Ir want to read with Daddy. She is very into her children's books, especially Richard Scarry, but of late she has also developed the habit of grabbing a 'no-picture' book and sitting with me. Of course, I'll frequently have to answer her questions about 'what this page is about" or help her turn the book right-side up (we have been working on clues that show you you have the book upside down, such as the header and the footer). I can also tell you more about my book than she could about hers. Just finished NB Stonehouse's book on Matthew and Mark... it was really interesting. He does a nice job engaging with the differences between the Gospel accounts while maintaining a respect for the historical foundation (as a Westminster professor). So it's been very interesting... even to dig into why exactly Luke and John have long post-resurrection narratives while Matthew and Mark are so terse.