A new woman!

I’m back from a week in Ethiopia. Some frustrations in the capital, and a day stuck in a small, hot airport thanks to the national airline, but some very relaxing enjoyable times, too, especially when we escaped the capital, and especially when we stayed for a day (would have been two except for the airport saga) beside a lake, beneath the trees – well, beneath the baboons and colobus monkeys in the trees, at least.

Actually, the baboons were doing their best to prevent relaxation, being more interested in G than I (or he) would have liked. After one encounter, we – or more accurately, the staff – made sure they kept their distance. Poor G was terrified of them! Add to that a bad encounter with a scary dog two days previously which had unnerved all five of us and you’ll understand why G is now very reluctant to be put down somewhere until he’s had a good look round!

Anyway, we had an hour’s horseriding (G and me together, E and R each looking poised on their own white horses) to take our minds off the baboons. We all enjoyed looking at the donkeys and cows and a waterfall that will disappear once the rains come as the five-or-so metre deep bowl it falls into will fill up entirely!

The night before, we’d seen the more impressive side of the local flora and fauna – strange pumice rock-shapes to clamber over and round, and hornbills, pelicans and two hippos who put on a lovely show for us just as we decided it was time to leave!

And in our remaining few hours, we had a lovely time at the beach and an outdoor-educational time walking along a log.  That was when we’d just arrived, and the reason it felt like outdoor ed was that the children were looking around them in bewilderment and fear and saying, “Can we go back inside?” I gave up trying to tempt them to explore all the way to the beach (a good 100m, maybe!) and concentrated on a nearby log, instead. “Come and hold my hand, Mummy,” said five-year-old E, who had initially shyed away because there were ants on it and still didn’t want to touch the thing. After half an hour’s patient encouragement, the three of them were walking, climbing, balancing and jumping and having a great old time. We spend too much time indoors here and only venture out in the car…

Well, maybe that will change – we are moving house: across the river, where rents are cheaper, shops are nearer and the garden already has a treehouse.  J  I am very excited about it!

So, to the title of this post… I have returned refreshed and feeling more energetic than I remember being for two years or more. Yesterday, mains electricity was off between 8am and 4pm (and the generator didn’t work for the first two hours or so – once it did it was just fans in the house, no ACs) and you would’ve thought that would dampen my spirits, but the slight breeze in the garden made it bearable and the pool trip was just wooonnnderful. And instead, I just marvelled at the fact that we had electricity all day today – I had assumed yesterday’s experience was par for the course, so I am feeling fortunate! Naturally, we still went to the pool…

 

A city empties…

I think most people have now left this place. Judging by the emptiness of the cafe this morning (breakfast out as a holiday treat since Daddy is away and can’t make us pancakes!), the expats are not the only ones to have gone.

My students for whom this country is home were all buzzing with plans for the summer in the last week of the semester just as much as the expat students.  Lots of these local ones are heading to London for two months, with their families. I assumed they would be staying with relatives there, but the talk was all of “our house in London” – a reminder of how rich these families are, especially given the centrality of the London locations!

The teaching staff at the school left in two groups – there was a large group which flew out the evening of the last working day (when they found time to pack, I don’t know, although I always look at these things from the perspective of having three small children) and the second group flew out two days later at the end of the week.

And other women and children have been leaving, even if their husbands/fathers have to remain. There are not many of us left. Still, this means that we will have the school pool to ourselves this afternoon, the service at the cafe this morning was not as awful as it sometimes is, and the roads even seem emptier, although that may be because I’m driving around at times of day that I generally wouldn’t. Add to that the five-day holiday that we’re going on next week and, all in all, I’m feeling quite positive about the month that’s left before we too leave, to spend July in the UK and Europe.

 

First day of the rest of my life!

Goodness me, I can’t believe I’m blogging so early in the morning, not to mention so early in the holiday!  Holiday?  Not sure what I mean by that – I certainly wouldn’t want to imply that my new life is that… but it does seem to be very relaxing today. I have a new sense of purpotstgehhjuio. But since Eleanor is sitting on my lap, keen to yhyhi participate in the blohgghinhg hexperiencebb, the sense of relaxation        and puhrpose may dwindle quickly……………….

 

It’s starting to feel real now…

So, here I am:  last day at work!  As of two hours’ time, I shall be unemployed once  more, putting my career on hold to spend more time with the family.  It seemed like a great idea back in January, but I have to say I’m a little nervous about it now.  At the moment, though, my chief emotion is excitement, that we’re at the end of what has been a long and exhausting year.  Enjoyable, too – I am going to miss many of the students (who all said very nice farewells last week) and the staff (many of whom are leaving the school and the country).  Still, I shall still be here and shall stay in touch with some people who aren’t leaving!  And who knows when I might be back to do a bit of supply work?!

 

Music in my car this morning

“Twinkon twinkon

Dar

How one how one

‘igh”

Sung by one of my favourite singers!

 

Riding on the beach

Almost forgot to tell you!  In my horseriding lesson last Saturday, we went for a ride on the beach that’s right by the stables.  It was lovely – beautiful light at the end of the day, trotting across the sand and walking through the water… beautiful!  Trotting still requires lots of concentration, but it’s definitely getting easier…

 

Mustn’t grumble…

We are instructed not to “give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing.”  Which seems laudable, until I realised today that I drive home from church every week vowing never to go back.

 

The service starts at 5:30pm.  We got there today at about 5:50pm, which is incredibly punctual for us (6:15pm is more our pattern).  I sat down, agreed to move so that R could have a seat too, sat down again, got up to move G away from the water cooler and cups that he had instantly gravitated towards, sat down again, realised there was a nasty smell, picked up G and a nappy, walked to the car (with R in tow who didn’t want to be left behind – E fortunately happy on the lap of one of her favourite people), got the wipes which I had forgotten to take into church, returned to church, walked to the back where there are fewer stones (should’ve had a mat, it was too hot for him on the ground), changed G, took R to the loo – in itself a highly involved operation as she was wearing trousers and it’s a squat loo.  Here’s the process: remove shoes, remove trousers, remove pants, replace shoes, wait – and then afterwards: remove shoes, replace pants, replace trousers, replace shoes.  Having completed all that, I walked back into church, sat down again, stood up to look for G who was nowhere to be seen, found him in the creche room with two friends and a few dusty broken toys, returned to my seat, sat down again, sat for a while listening to the children’s talk, stood up three times during the talk to move G away from the water cooler and cups, took G to creche when the girls went to Sunday School, returned to my seat (he was the only one in creche), showed an interest in the toy he brought me when he came to find me a minute later, followed him round when he asked me to, put him on my lap and looked at a book with him, with one ear on a sermon about Job, followed him round again and ended up in Sunday School with E and R and about 6 others (including the teacher’s child who is same age as G).  Sat down and helped and played and helped supervise when teacher and one child went back into church for communion.  Stopped G drawing on the wall with crayons three times.  Realised teacher’s other two children had made their escape and reunited themselves with mummy.  Returned to seat to get wipe from bag to wipe crayon from wall.  Helped put girls’ shoes on; left.  That was at 7:10pm, and communion was still going on.

 

Still, I was able to listen to a little bit, in church and in Sunday School.  In Sunday School, I heard that the Israelites had grumbled quite a bit in the desert and that had made God feel cross.  So he sent snakes to bite them.

 

Does that mean I shouldn’t have written this?

 

Irritations

We were having a nice morning… then we came home.

 

The overflow pipe from the top floor flat is leaking again.  Torrents were coming from it a few months ago – you wouldn’t’ve thought such a thing was possible, but it was like a very concentrated rain cloud!  And it made a big permanent puddle in the corner of the veranda (or whatever it’s called) which was naturally quite a child magnet and stayed so long the walls and ground started to get discoloured from the damp.  So eventually, after much shifting of responsibility (and no action to get the overflow problem fixed), someone from the office came and put a drain there and attached it to the existing drainage system.  Clever, eh?

 

So I was a mite surprised to come home today and see that the puddle had returned!  And why?  Because the drain has a very snugly-fitting plug in it.  So, instead of putting the shopping away, feeding the children and putting G down for his nap, I had to stand, barefoot, in the puddle, with a shower of water splashing down right next to me, while I battled with this plug with bare hands, then with a peg and then with a kitchen knife (we apparently don’t have pliers here – one of the disadvantages of having a man from the office to do stuff for us is that we’re not fully stocked on tools).  Anyway, the kitchen knife and sheer bad temper finally did the trick, and the puddle drained (with impressive speed, actually – I stayed a little longer in the puddle to watch).  The noise is still there, though – drip splash drip drip splash splash drip.

 

Still, it’s reached the high 30s here now, so having damp jeans on one side for half an hour is not a major hardship!  Just one of those little irritations, like

 

running out of electricity at 1am and having to get out of bed, get dressed and go out to buy more

 

running a bath with the curiously-positioned tap which splashes half the water over the side onto the clever runnel that delivers it all to the floor

 

having no water for my shower in the morning

 

having to carry my school bag, G, G’s bag and my handbag into school, when it’s already hot, from the furthest parking spot, because I’m late in because I was dropping off the children at their school because M is away…

 

Grrrrrr!!

 

Cool!

Eleanor’s first spoonerism (yesterday) was “spork and foon”!

An important milestone in any child’s life, I’m sure you’ll agree…

 

One of the perks of the job

Took half an hour off during the day today to go to the pool and swim.  It was the perfect temperature for it, the water momentarily breath-taking, but then bliss.  Ten lengths in ten minutes and out; shower (double benefit – there was no water this morning so I couldn’t shower then!) and back to my office… Lovely.