No April Showers

That seems to be the news this month-- no rain. It is quite telling that last year my entry on this exact date began with the phrase: "Torrential downpour is becoming part of my daily lexicon." I do remember last year at this time being overwhelmed by water, mud, and mold. We had to cancel road trips and take numerous mitigating steps to minimize the damage done by the intense rain. 

Last year was the wettest rainy season in memory according to many. This year we have been in somewhat of a drought. I can't say that we have not had a drop of rain, but it is very sporadic. We started out well in the first weeks of February, but then went a month with nothing, then had several days of rain again followed by another month of drought. It is definitely not enough to give the farmers around here a good harvest, which is very sad in such a food insecure country. 

The lack of rain has also meant that the change of temperature, from balmy to cold has been much slower than last year. We are approaching winter her in the southern hemisphere, but that is not really evident in the air. We are still using our fans at night, and I can jump right into the pool in the morning without risking cold shock. I believe that will change sometime in the next month, (the water got down into the 50s fairenheit last July. This year, it seems I will not need to dawn my wetsuit as soon.

Life in the last 10 days has been somewhat normal. No trips out of town, which does mean a bit less news. Rebecca has been busy with a number of things in town related to church. She is head of the church council and they had a retreat last Saturday to discern what areas of church life need focus in the coming year. She was gone all of Saturday. 

I watched David and his friend Toby on Saturday after we had a sleep over exchange with our friends from Canada. Oren stayed at their house with Zeke, and Toby came to our house with David. David and Toby are really two peas in a pod as far as likes and dislikes and both really wanted to go fishing at Lake Duluti. We caught some crickets and brought our nets and rods. For David the important thing is to catch and play with the fish, so he really does not care what size they are. The tilapia we catch on rods are not more than a few inches, but he and Toby had just as much fun wading in with their nets and catching the minnow-sized ones by the hundreds to put into a bucket in which they could put their hands and play with them. At the end of the day we let them all go and went over to their house and picked up Oren. 

We also saw the Tim Burton remake of Dumbo that weekend, on the same evening, I believe. We go to a lot of movies here because it is a fairly inexpensive activity, even for 3D (about $4.50 each). All of us enjoyed it, especially because we had seen the original many times. (It is important because it is very deliberately referrential to certain iconic scenes: Casey Junior, storks, pink elephants, a mouse, a feather, mother's lullaby. In other ways it was quite different. For me the opening scene was the best moment. 

On the cultural front, I should mention another activity we do with regularity. That is listening to audio books. We do this because we as a family have a long commute to and from the office, since we bring the children to the office to catch the bus for school in the morning. We did some pretty heavy literature in year 1 including all of Lord of the Rings, and then Harry Potter. This year we have been listening to a series of 8 books about an Irish boy criminal mastermind named Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer. I think they do compete with Harry Potter. We have thoroughly enjoyed them on our commutes back and forth to work/school as a family. We just finished #6 this week. 

Friday night was also a cultural experience as we attended the St. Constantine secondary school production called the Big Bad Musical. It was a musical about the trial of the big bad wolf. Very funny and excellently acted by students at St. Cons. Oren was one of the scene painters, and the whol production was very well executed. 

This past Saturday was a replay of the week before with me taking David and Toby out to Lake Duluti. This time we met a guy selling worms and we caught quite a few more of the bigger fish. I taught Sunday School, but more interestingly, I am now a co-director of the Sunday school program. It is a big responsibility but in an all volunteer church, someone needs to do it. It is a challenge as 70-80 kids are showing up and exceeding the room space we have for them. Need a new vision.

This week we have had our Area Directors in town and quarterly reporting time for our partners. It is keeping me busy for the time being. 

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Bonus Photo: David and Toby with chameleons they caught at church.