Today is Monday and we have now been gone from Burnsville
for 4 weeks. That is half of our time
here. Sometimes the days seem to go by
quickly and sometimes the days seem like they will never end. It is directly proportional to the weather,
the activity level in the office and my frame of mind. I have been sending lots of emails and making
phone calls on MagicJack (a device that lets you call through the computer and
not have to pay anything for them) trying to feel connected to those I am
missing from home. It works, too! Skyped with Carly last week when she had all
three of my grandkids at her house. It was fun to see them running around and
playing just like they always do.
They
are doing fine without me.
I made chicken noodle soup from scratch for dinner on
Saturday night (still cool here, not hot like Minnesota). It was good, too. The only problem is that we will be eating it
for a full week. Every three days or so
Ken and I walk up to the market and buy what few things we need for the coming
week. When I make things, it is hard to
eat all the leftovers quickly enough.
Just goes to show how spoiled we are with all the preservatives we have
in our food. We have a freezer so I can
keep some things longer.
It is now Wednesday and I found something to do with my soup
leftovers. Yesterday we were supposed to
do some banking and did get some of it done.
But the last week of the month is when the government pays salaries and
the banks are always very busy. Tuti, my
banking buddy from the Lutheran Center,
was having a lot of trouble with her back and couldn't stand in line and
so we decided to finish early this morning.
I told Tuti that I would bring her dinner so she didn't have to go home
and cook. I fixed a big portion of the left over soup which had absorbed most
of the liquid so now it was leftover "hotdish" and packed it along
with some soda and some cookies from the cooking school. We then offered to take her home from work
so she didn't have to ride the dala dala.
Those are vans used as transport buses and are often very crowded. She would have had to stand most of the way
home and she lives some distance from the Lutheran Center. When we reached her house, we were invited in
and met her husband. He is very
pleasant. She must have told him we were
coming because he had on a sport coat!
They have a very nice Tanzanian house surrounded by a cement wall with a
gate. There is no grass but lots of
trees and landscaped dirt (pots of plants and flowers everywhere). The inside of her home was clean and spacious
with nice furniture. It is obvious to see
that Tuti has worked hard to have a nice place to live. She
appreciated the meal, too.
This morning we went to the bank first thing at 8:30
a.m.. We had three bank stops and
several places to go for Tuti to do some business things for the Lutheran Center. We were home at 9:30 a.m.! Tuti said this was our lucky day and we
should do something important with it!
So, I am writing a blog entry.
Hope you have a lucky day today, too!
Oh, and just as an aside, all three of us (Ken, Tuti and I) were wearing
ORANGE! Think about that.
Stay cool and enjoy the last days of the Minnesota State Fair. It may not be possible to do both at the same
time but I wish you a happy Labor Day weekend.
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