I have been holed up at home with my bunchkins ( kids) a lot this last week. Here¹s some news of our days:
* Naomi, Quinn and their friend Ephraim have created a clubhouse. Ephraim is being raised in an English-speaking Ugandan home so our kids don¹t struggle as much with language and cross-cultural issues with him. However, it¹s still different than an American friendship. Thus reads the sign on the clubhouse: ³ Yammm!!! No Elders allowed in this clubhouse!!² (by which I think he means: ³ important point, no grownups!²) Whenever I appear around a corner to walk by and peek in on what¹s happening, Ephraim yells, ³INTERRUPTION!² – a very Ugandan comment which always cracks me up. * Naomi is studying World War I in Sonlight History and loves it (as she does all history). The kids have begun using hoes, shovels and pick axes to dig ³trenches² in the piles of dirt in the yard. They bring in goldfish crackers smuggled from America for ³rations². * We had a 4th of July bonfire for the kids ­ as the only Americans in town over the weekend we had to ³resort² to sharing the holiday with Ugandans. We had fun roasting hot dogs (from Kampala) and marshmallows (from America ­ thanks Brook and Doug!) with about fifteen students who remained on campus over the mid-term long weekend. We forced them to listen to Wee Sing America on the ipod stereo and showed them Narnia. * Naomi is gardening like crazy. She has maize, soy beans, tomatoes and dodo coming up as well as a few more american crops like cauliflower and sunflowers. Each morning she goes out and checks on her plants as if they are babies. She surely got her Gramma Elizabeth and Grampa Steve¹s green thumbs. Everything she touches seems to grow beautifully and she has tender concern for each plant. Her soy beans are almost read to harvest and I never helped her a bit! * We got a clogged kitchen drain so workers have come in to dig up half our backyard and open the pipe. I¹m thankful for kitchen drains and folks who know how to open them so that David doesn¹t have to. * We ate gonza bananas for dinner last night with a sausage red sauce. These foot and a half long bananas are peeled, halved and steamed and make a dish much like boiled potatoes except they¹re, well, bananas. If you can get over eating bananas with a red sauce they are quite delicious. Naomi isn¹t there yet. * I discovered that rats have made my sheets and blankets into nesting materials. They have used these nesting materials to build a complex fortified house inside the broiler and back workings of the stove. Additionally they seem immune to the poison we bought. Great. * I put a desk in our small food storage room so that I have a quiet and hidden place to work when I¹m at home ­ free from the eyesite of visitors. I sit in there very quietly to read and write and contemplate. When you sit very quietly in the food storage area you can hear the sound of chewing. I investigated and discovered that it is hundreds of tiny weevils that have attacked the pasta we carried from the city. They are hatching inside the bags and multiplying daily. The sound of their chewing is surprisingly irritating. * Naomi is on a Beverly Cleary reading blitz. So far this week we have read aloud five of her books. Naomi is quite taken with Ramona. Quinn likes to listen in too, except when he is too busy fighting fantasy opponents. N and Q have developed a beautiful and complex ³Klickitat Street² in their playmobil area. It is fantastic and so fun to hear them talking to each other as if they are reading from a book: ³I won¹t!!, said Ramona.² ³Well, you¹d better, said her father.² All while holding up the playmobil figures who are Henry, Beezus, etc. I like the child psychology wrapped into the text and the way it stimulates conversations about how kids and grown ups think and the misunderstanding that arise between us. * African friends told Naomi and Quinn that Obama should not have won. They wanted McCain to win because ³whites should rule whites and blacks rule blacks.² N and Q informed their friends seriously that Americans come in all colors and Obama is in charge of a melting pot or a mixing bowl or something like that ­ Americans of all races and persuasions. American politics even in Africa! * Quinn has suddenly gotten good at games. At six and a half he is beautifully half baby and half kid. His amazingly adorable cheeks dimples, feet, voice and pronunciations and infectious giggle are all tot but many of his thoughts, dreams and abilities are all big-kid. I am constantly surprised to find how half and half he still is. Yesterday he amazed me by playing so successfully at Skip Bo, a fairly complex card game. Uncle James and Aunt Ali better watch out! * Naomi¹s good friend, Nyakato (which means the second born twin) has come down with a case of typhoid. Naomi is very worried about her.
There are so many more stories to tell but I¹ll stop here for now since all but the grandparents have stopped reading long ago . . . .