Personal tidbits

Here are a few photos of daily life. The power sporatically goes out and sometimes at mealtime. Dailes (dial-us), our helper is cooking lunch for us on the braai (grill). She makes the
traditional Zambian meal of nshima and relish for us three days a week. Yes, mom, that is one of my good pots! It survived.
Children use titles to address adults so our children call her 'Auntie Dailes'. This is Auntie just arriving for the day, wearing a very typical Zambian dress. She is a beautiful Christian lady. Her husband has died and she is raising their three children. Working here supports her aging mother and widowed sister and helps send her children to a better school. She answers cultural questions and helps us pick up a bit of the local language. She has been wonderful.
A silly photo of our banana tree. Maybe you will be interested to know what growing bananas look like, we hadn't seen it before. This tree is near our dining room window.
Our girls have been longing to make friends so one of our guard/gardeners had one of his daughters come play for the afternoon. The guards are on rotating shifts and spend most of their time gardening but they also open our gate and screen people. Every house has a guard on duty just as culture dictates, precaution. Nyawa wore her best dress and even brought an excellent school report to show us. She is a nice, bright, second grader. The girls had a great time pretending and playing outside all afternoon. Kelly had a banana in her mouth during the picture!
Just to close, here is a photo of a huge bug that landed on our window. It was about 6 inches long. Not sure if it was some kind of grasshopper? Pretty cool. (as long as it stays outside)