Mom's Month

Mom and I spent many months  preparing for her to come to Zimbabwe. Now she's already back in the U.S., and I see I'll be on a trans-Atlantic flight in just a month myself.

It really was something different having her here. I have had few opportunities to share my life abroad with friends and family back home, and it is always such a trippy, amazing time - to bridge the old world with the new. Home and history meets the unknown world in which I live. Some of the best times were just talking over a glass of wine by the fire after the kids were asleep.

Nothing beats having your loving mom to spend time with your kids.

Last days of the school break

The sun is shining – blue skies with white clouds. The garden is green from the daily rains. I can hear the pool filling with water from the mouth of a concrete fish hanging over the deep end. A nice cool breeze whispers the fronds of the palms. The high branches of the pecan tree bend. Birds as small as humming birds fly among the leaves outside my window. Their wings are iridescent green, and their chests are bright red. I can hear three other birds, bigger ones, whistling and chirping to each other….and Miles humming to himself as he runs down the hallway then calls to the gardener’s son: Panache, I got a cactus!

At the Brookfield produce and gardening shop, he picked out a spiny dark green cactus as tall as his thumb. I got the echevaria sertosa, a pale-green, fuzzy cactus that looks like an open flower and will have orange blossoms.

A slug that I noticed yesterday hanging above the kitchen door is now high on the hallway wall.  It’s really too high to reach, and who wants to climb a ladder and pull a slug off a wall anyway? It’s better than the nest of flat spiders and fleas that infested the Moon Close house where we lived last year. With the rains come the little creatures, but it’s really not so bad – an advantage of elevation.

Mambo, who we adopted as a little kitten in October, has earned his keep, presenting the remains of at least two rats at our front door. We love Mambo, whose high energy and tolerance of playful kids fits well with our family. Have you seen the Olivia books with the little-girl-pig carrying her cat just under the front legs so that his whole body stretches out? This is Eliza who will hold the cat just so…while she is brushing her teeth, for example. If only Mambo would not wake me at 4 a.m. for his early morning snack.

Two more days until school starts. The nearly four-week Christmas holiday has flown by. Apparently having nothing to do all day is just the kind of day that Miles loves. He is singing now and building a tower with his big cardboard bricks in his room. That is not to say that I won’t get a request from him in five minutes for the iPad or a Walking with Dinosaurs dvd. We haven’t been very strict with our restrictions on those things over the holidays.

It’s night now and Miles had a special day with us without his sister around. Eliza is spending the night at Aljosha’s (Jana Lou’s brother) - her first sleepover invitation, and her first time without her parents or brother. Miles drew some wonderful pictures for his “mamy” and “dady,” and then helped David roll out and cut homemade pasta for dinner.

Back Home to Zim

Nothing beats sitting by a roaring fire. Outside the night sky is full of stars. The kids are sleeping, and the generator is humming (for another hour or so as the adults get ready for bed)…ah, Africa.

We’ve been back for a few days, and it’s already starting to feel like we never left. First impressions on returning were, wow, life’s pretty great here. The house seemed so much bigger, so many rooms all to ourselves, so many toys, and so much freedom and space to play in the garden. It seemed like I didn’t hear from the kids for hours. They were off running around with Shepherd and Panache or lying on the trampoline looking up at the birds. The first couple of days, the weather was awesome, blue skies, warm sun, cool breeze. We spent all day outside.

I feel grateful for the holiday. We got to see so many friends and family, the San Francisco Bay Area, the Appalachian Mountains, the Florida gulf coast and Tennessee. OK, it was really hot in the South, and it was sometimes stressful imposing ourselves on everyone, but spending time with loved ones was much needed. I especially appreciated having two weeks(!) with my sister, getting to see her new house and life in Oakland. Elliott and Eliza played well together (while Miles was with Mom in Chatt!). (See kid blog...eventually... for more on the holiday.)

Here we are at an awesome Mexican restaurant in Sausalito. Yummy margaritas!

Here are the kinfolk on the west coast: cousin Erin (all grown up) and Chuck and Gail. So good to see them!

Yeah, that's the Golden Gate bridge. We were at a children's museum. How cool is that?

We still need to figure out a way to do the holiday just right so that no one has to break the bank, and it’s not too crazy hectic. My thought is that if this life abroad goes on for much longer, we should invest in a timeshare in a place in the States that people can get to easily, and would want to visit any time of the year. We could block out our time for a month and just chill while everyone comes to visit us. What do you think?

For Barbara

I’ve been wanting to blog for a while but have felt so scatter-brained and distracted. It’s hard not to say anything about Barbara. She was David’s dad’s girlfriend of 15 years. It is very sad and shocking for us that she suddenly fell ill and died of cancer in just a couple of months. Jack’s siblings and children are gathering this weekend to be with him and to remember Barbara.

Death does give one a lot to think about, but I’ll spare you.

Here’s to Barbara.