It's a boy! And a girl! Well, it's hard to tell...

Sometimes life gets in the way of documenting life. Hence the pause in bloggage.

But life is good yet sweaty here in Afrika Borwa. Summer is peaking its head around the corner. Teased by days of relative coolness, we are then hit with bouts of mid-90s weather, during which I daydream of bucket-sized slushies and…what do they call those contraptions? Oh yes, showers. Those would be nice.

Though there has yet to be a definitive resolution, the public sector strike is, for now, over and the teachers are back to work. I’d say things are back to normal but I’ve realized there is no normal in my life. My work has lately been interrupted by various intrusions like a medical problem (non-serious) that has taken me into Pretoria with all too much frequency, but I’m still chugging along and making small progress here and there.

A recent excitement in my life: my cat had kittens!!! My host family and I jointly claim ownership of Kgabo (Setswana for monkey) who was just a baby herself when we got her last year. My host mom got her from a neighbor but I Americanized her so much (meaning she actually likes human contact and now loudly demands food from any passerby) that they tend to call her mine now. Anyways, she got knocked up by her feral boyfriend who had been diligently courting her and…presto! Four tiny wriggling cuties. While Bob Barker would be deeply disappointed in me, I had long ago decided having enough money to feed myself was worth not having her spayed. So, if they all survive, one is going to a nearby volunteer and we don’t know about the others yet. Once they’re crawling around, though, I just may have to name the furballs and get intensely attached to them. It’s so hard not to.