Snapshots - by John

So, the blog entries are slowing down a little, and the people are complaining. At least, some of the people are. So, what have we done the last two weeks? Here’s a snapshot.

- A veritable plague of frogs. Seems that the conditions for frogs are just right, and we have seen hundreds of them, jumping around in our house. Well, maybe not hundreds, more like… three. Still, it’s unusual for us to see a frog jumping across the living room. Danica was startled to see this fellow on the toilet seat. Good thing the light was on when she went in and so she noticed it, otherwise things could have gotten squishy!

- The lawnmower is broken, again.This time the pulley isn’t staying on the drive shaft because the part that clamps the pulley onto the drive shaft isn’t the right size, or something like that.I think you must be getting very very tired of reading about this, but believe me, I’m getting more tired trying to keep the dumb thing running.Total running time last week: 10 minutes.Sheesh.

- We are in the Shwag business. If you don’t know what shwag is(or is it spelled schwag?), it's those corporate gifts, usually festooned with logos, that sales and marketing types like to give away in the misguided believe that a travel mug will somehow sway you to spend a whole-lot-o-bucks with their company. Anyway, this week Charlene is busy putting together a whole package of shwag, so that Chuck can give it to some Mozambiquean big-wigs at a special course in Maputo next week. We went down to the “Executive Gifts” store in Nelspruit to check out the selection, and found out that South African shwag is pretty much like North American shwag, and it is all made in China anyway. Of course, if MCC was putting together a shwag package, it would probably include fairly traded coffee, lentils, and the “More WithLess” cookbook.

- We visited a new nature reserve just outside of Barberton, about a half hour drive away. It is very undeveloped, including the roads. There was no map so we just kind of followed our noses down a main road, which quickly turned from concrete into gravel, and then into mud and stones. At one point we thought we were trying to drive up a steep hill on a road made of large rocks, and had to take two tries to make it, it was pretty exciting. We saw Zebras, Impalas and some monkeys way off in the distance. We also saw this guy, who is the most colorful grasshopper we have ever seen.

- How many Mozambiqueans does it take to plant a tree? If you do it the C4L way, as many as possible! I just learned about a C4L tradition, in that whenever there is a certain kind of course, they plant a tree. This year it is a Lime tree. One of the C4L Board Members comes out a gives everyone a special lesson in planting trees in arid conditions, and it’s quite interesting. Here’s a picture of the Learners themselves.

That’s it for now! Peace.