Zambezi

Dear all, writing on my phone in Kariba. Everyone is alive, although I have terribleear pain. Samma som du hade Mathias i Spanien... In an hour we leave for our canoe trip down the Zambezi. Should be interesting. Will be back to civilization on the second. Love from all! Toodles!

Less than a month left

I am freeeeeeeee!! No more lessons or concerts. I would give you a story of the last two weeks events, but it has been crazy busy, so it would probably end up fifteen pages long. Plus after all this playing my elbow is not happy and therefore I won't write that much.
I think I've counted to seven concerts in nine days, plus HECTIC rehearsals. I held the conducting stick in six of the concerts, and the violin in all of them. Student concert, fundraiser, opening ceremony, busking, carol concert, christmas showcases. Phew.

It is a strange feeling now, when it's all over. My whole year of what I've been doing here. I can't believe how much has happened, how much I've learnt, how much I've seen and grown. I came a spoilt, naive Swede and leve a little less so I hope.

I now have a few days to spend with Sam, before the Swedish invasion. It is hot and cold like a roller coaster, but after the rains we've had everything is now turning green, which is so so so nice. I have gone from being a Swedish rain- and grey-clouds-hater to being a Zimbabwean rain- and grey-clouds-lover.

This morning Line, Stephen, Maria and I went to the bendover a quickie. The backseat of the car (Stephen and I) were not happy with the time of day and kept up the yawning and mumbling. Getting up at seven on a Sunday is just wrong. We did find a few things though, while some of the stalls were still being put up. Now I feel like going back to bed. I think I might.

Toodles.

Harare weekend

Today is Stressful Thursday. As always. I am at Girls' College fixing for all the concerts that are happening soon soon. In an hour we have music group practice, since we are then playing at the Form 1 orientation day, then more practice, then hopefully three lessons, then a get together with all my students, to get ready for the student concert on Tuesday. We are playing Twinkle Twinkle in three different variations. Exciting. I am so terribly proud of all of them, thay have learnt so much in a year and are all enjoying it, which makes me even happier. Yesterday little Jamie-Lee brought both her mum and gran to the lesson, because she likes it so much. Made me really happy.

So on Monday I came back from three days in Harare. Took the frightfully early bus up on Satur`ay mopnin( `fter @ri``y nhdhpr Rapiapy So`w thph$pur`r%fdh`p%w`lu`d'ano`a d'd`w&`a#bgradas`d!fcifgn`(!Lf`a.`h'ebpr%fobeph!Barepg%pg%repm%d`r)`q.`i.cberile`b!yn`c,oed|`'(ych`f/lloget`e){s all the way in to town, where I was picked up by Frank Rae. He and his wife Elisabeth live in Gran and Grandad's old house on Mount Pleasant Dr. It was fascinating to see the place I slightly remember from last time I was in the country, 13 years ago. In my memories things were a whole lot bigger! I spent the night fighting a pack of mozzies that kept me awake too long, then eventually gave up. Sunday morning we went for brunch with their homegroup, which was interesting and very tasty. I met people who knew both gran and dad. Amongst them were Ingrid and Ron Marks.

After another nap (I saw this trip as a little holiday) Frank and I headed off to see Elisabeth sing in Handel's Messiah in Arundel School Chapel. Very nice. During the wine and cheese afterwards I met Francis Podmore and his wife, who wanted alot of updates on the family. Sunday night I drenched myself in mozziespray (by then I already had around 25 evil bites) and tricked the horrible mozzies into the bathroom, away from my sleep.

Monday I headed off to Emirates to buy a ticket, and then we visited an orphanage that got some help before enjoying a wonderful lunch at The Cottage. A little oasis in town. After all this I jumped on the afternoon bus back and arrived in the dark evening in town to be picked up by Maria.

With us now we have Joe and Maria's son Stephen with girlfriend Line, and Joe's brother Dan. So once again we fill up the house. We are lucky we have borehole water or there would be problems. Apparently the city of Bulawayo now only has water left for 38 days. Then the dams are dry. The rain situation here is absolutely terrible and there are many rain-prayer meetings being held because of it. I really hope we get some soon. The heat has been stupid the last few days and this morning we got a little bit, but we need the big drenching rains, not the little dainty ones. Sigh. Anyhow. I better print out all the music I just arranged, so the girls have something to play. Toodeloo! 

Ten months into the game

Right. So. After quite an extreme blog pause, I am back. Not back from anywhere special (except a long day at work), but none the less back.

I can hardly think of what to write about what has happened in the time that has elapsed since last time I wrote. You know, it's weird but somehow I've forgotten a lot of it. I think everyday life does that to you. It blends together and makes a mush of lessons, planning, chats, papers, lessons, papers, notes, pens, driving, lunch, frustration and laughter. All in all; not boring, but very busy. And today I found out I am to be even more busy the last week of November and first week of December, due to concerts, that I now for the first time am on the teacher-side of. Phew, so much work to be done. And so much music to be written and arranged. Mostly Christmas carols.

Otherwise, more unusual things I have done are:
Gone to CBC leaver's dance with a fascinator in my hair.
Experienced more lightning than I have ever before.
Danced in the rain til I was soaked through and through.
Spent my last night as a teenager being violently sick.
Turned Twenty!
Had Birthday Dinner and Birthday Lunch. (on different days)
Got lovely presents.
Played with glow sticks for the first time in my life.
Skyped a lot.
Taken care of a choir consisting of 80 teenage girls by myself.
Participated in Girls' College Speech Day (typ skolavslutning fast Mycket mer formellt.), which demanded twelve hours of work.
Built blanket forts.
Etc.

Really, a lot has happened and even more lies ahead. I now definitely understand the necessity of weekends, although some of them make me more tired than the week days.

The weather has been interesting, first stupidly hot, then rain and really cold and cloudy (for being here), and now it's getting hotter again. I now appreciate clouds much more than when I first came here. The midday sun can be so very harsh. Not to say that I long for the dreary yucky autumn I imagine they have in Sweden now. I am very happy to be here right now.

People keep on asking me if I am really leaving, and then why. Sometimes I do wonder, but mostly I know that my time here soon is up, more places need to be found. Right now I can think of one special place that needs deep exploring and that is my pillow. It has been a long day (my statement that I don't work on Mondays is a big fat lie, I have realised). So night night people!

The first rain in over half a year!!

I seem to have made blogging a Wednesday thing. Well, three in a row now right? I must say, it is much easier posting pictures on nellieinafrica.tumblr.com. I have fallen in love with tumblr, I really have. It is a whole world. Anyhow. I have started taking photos with my phone camera now, which means I can take of things anytime anywhere, since my phone is with me all the time. But of course, quality wise it can never ever compete with my sweet Nikon D90. Which now has four different lenses. Amazing, how on earth did that happen?

Yesterday it rained!!!!!! For maybe five minutes, but at least it rained. I was in the office at the academy, so I jumped up and ran outside to feel the drops. It was glorious. So I walked around the building hearing the rain fall hard on the corrugated roofs next door and seeing the the dusty reddish brown ground turning spotty. So so nice.

Obviously my tactic worked. You see every week my students have to paint one thing each time they practice, and every week has a different theme. For a few weeks now my kids have got rain clouds, where they have had to draw a raindrop each time they practice. I told them it was wishful thinking, since we wanted rain. And TADA it came! Yeha!

Today I am first off to GC to start arranging all our christmas songs that we are going to play, then I have lessons at the academy in the afternoon. And I today had my alarm set for six o'clock. ... I am honestly telling the truth. I volountarily did so, because otherwise I die by the end of my morning walks. It is quite fun now, walking this time in the morning. It is before the real rush of cars for CBC and Petra, but just in time to meet all the kids walking to Hillside Junior School. And they are sooo sweet. By now they reckognise me and since I always say good morning to everybody I meet, they now even sometimes say good morning to me before I've had time to open my mouth. There were two small girls today who looked so happy when they said it, I couldn't stop smiling for another twenty five meters. Cute! I love kids.

Right, sore elbow. Must be a sign, saying I should be off. Which I should. We have a few whispy clouds today, so perhaps we won't die of heat. Like we did yesterday. Sweating in my room ten o'clock at night. Africa. Anywho. Toodles!

A longer update

A week of blog pause. Well at least it wasn't longer.

Life is a bit hectic during the days. I am working so hard on Sibelius arranging stuff for GC that I feel totally square eyed. We are playing in two weeks on Speech Day and we haven't started with all the stuff yet. I'm still getting it ready!! But by tomorrow lunch time it should all be done and I can relax when the weekend comes. Again. I definitely understand why we have weekends now. How on earth would we survive otherwise?! Last weekend was wonderfully chilled. I made a feeble attempt at filling up my 2TB external harddrive with music and movies from Sam, but it hardly made a differenc in this black box. I slept and wrote a lot. I'm doing a thirty day writing challenge which is such fun! Most often I end up writing bleary eyed just before bed though, so when I read it in the morning I have to try and decipher what I've written and what I actually meant...

I've been getting up so early the last two weeks, trying to get my walk in before it gets too hot, so now I meet all the school people when they go to school, which is amusing at times. Both Petra Primary and High and CBC go past our house on their way to school, so there are a lot of them. It becomes one long line of cars at the busiest of times. Anyway, so I get up early, but unfortunately I don't go to bed earlier. Too much of a night owl.

I read the other day of how science had shown that there were big differences in the brain and genes between early birds and night owls. At last. Proof. Early birds are most productive and efficient at 9 am, and then during the day they slowly get worse, while night owls are the exact opposite, with their peak at 9 pm. Ha!! There you go, I'm not lazy, just not made for society. Tonight though I am going to bed early, since I have so much to get done tomorrow morning.

Yesterday I had a new student, first in many months. Her gran had bought her a violin, and when I opened the case I got quite a shock. An electric violin!! Obviously it wasn't possible for her to have that, what with zesa-cuts and so on, so I tried to explain the difference between it and my violin and how she needed to get one with a box, not an S shape. But my insides were all the time screaming "I WANT IT!!" It actually didn't look to bad, she had paid quite a bit for it, so it wouldn't be a rubbish one either. Anyhow, I put it away reluctantly and today she came with a wooden one (honestly, if it has headphones, do you not think it needs power...?) and I am now to assemble what will be something like my twentieth violin since I got here.

Right, writing time, before I spend some quality time with my pillow.
Night!

Time in the heat

So, I think this is the third week of term, but I'm not sure. Time is just running past me. I now have a slightly different schedule, but only a tiny bit. It feels so weird to think that this is my last term. Ahh!! I don't want to leave my kids/teenagers, they are too wonderful. But I will as I must. Before I do though we have a lot going on. Concerts and gigs and concerts. Phew. Plus my birthday!!! I am turning twenty in less than a month. I can hardly understand it. I don't feel nineteen, but I don't feel twenty either. Hopefully I'll be in Hwange then, seeing as I  haven't been there yet, despite my best efforts.

It is getting considerably warmer now, which is welcome after the freezing winter we had. However, I am constantly warned that October will kill us all with it's stinking heat. I wish we could keep it like this; warm enough to never be cold in a summer dress. (Bought soooooo much stuff at Bendover last time.) I have noticed that my morning walks, which I have now revived after the holiday, feel a lot better heatwise too early in the morning for my liking. So unfortunately that might continue from now on...

I bought a 2TB external harddrive just before Linda left and have now transeferred nearly all my photos and movies there, which on my computer made it impossible for me to even play spotify songs, due to lack of disc space. On the external now, it hardly makes a dent in the space. Amazing. Very cheap as well, $215. Good buy Nellie, good buy.

And good bye to you as well. Time to skype Ella. I think.

Kind of back

I have kind of struggled getting back into blogging mode since Linda came/left. Suddenly work is back and in full speed and life just seems to wizz past. A week ago exactly Linda ran off back to Sweden and for the first time since February I am the only person under 50 staying here. Strange.

On Friday we had another performance of the SOTC, but this time without intruments which was very interesting and meant we choirleaders had to do much more. Anyway, we survived and it is over now. Celebrated with pizza at Sam's.

I feel like I should tell lots about when Linda was here, but I can't remember what I've already told you. We did a lot anyway. Antelope Park, Chipengali, bendover, craft shops, work, Vic Falls, Jeanette's farm, Heather's farm, tummy bugs, car breakdown, a whole heap of chatting, Wordfeuding, walks, shopping, suntanning, cooking, dinners and lots more. I couldn't believe how bad my Swedish was when she came, but by the time she left it was kind of okay. It was a bit of a stress having to try and think in Swedish, and talk! Much easier with English I felt. So now I am back to that. Comfortable. I just kept on forgetting the Swedish words, or making them English. For Swedes: Once Linda and I were driving in the dark and I said " Åh, kolla väglamporna är på!" And she replied "Japp, och gatlyktorna också..." Felt a bit stupid. Anyhow.

Today I am to meet a girl called Chelsea, who is a niece of someone who gran knows (if I've understood correctly), at Hillside Dams, so I better get going. I'll try to come back here a bit more often than I have lately. There have been coming up a few photos on my tumblr if you've missed that in my blogging absence. nellieinafrica.tumblr.com

Toodles!

Matopos, Bulawayo and Vic Falls in a week

Wow, it seems like forever since I wrote here last. Anyhow. Terribly tired now, got back from three nights in Vic Falls this afternoon, but thought I should show signs of life here before the gravity of my pillow gets too strong and pulls me under.

SO, we spent two nights out on the farm last week, then on Friday the brakes on my Sunbeam (aka the yellow Nissan Sunny) packed up way out of town and had to take it to car-hospital for a few days. Problem here: we were going to go to the falls on the Sunday. Instead we went to the bendover market and to Chipengali, the animal centre. I should mention that Friday night was spent on our veranda roof watching the blue moon, with cardgames, a movie and sleep. Monday we jumped on a bus to the falls and spent three nights at a backpacker's lodge called Shoestrings. Linda looooved it. I knew she would. We went white water rafting on Tuesday which we of course loooved (only flipped once though...), chilled in the afternoon (/died of exhaustion), had pizza and chatted. Wednesday we went to Victoria Falls National Park. Well, I went there and spent a few hours with a milkshake while Linda did the Bridge Swing on the bridge. We then trotted around the park, seeing so much more than when Peter and I were there. There was much less water now, so less mist, but then also less water coming over the edge. For late lunch I had a Crocodile Tail Wrap. Way cool. We hurried home to catch the Sunset Cruise on the Zambesi above the falls. Beautiful. Home and shower at last. It was actually really warm in the falls, much warmer than here at home. After a long and good night at the Shoestrings bar we got up at another ungodly hour and headed back to Bulawayo.

That is basically a weeks worth of stuff we've done. I might write more about it later, we'll see. The days are going so fast now, but it feels like Linda has always been here. Part of the furniture. At the moment her bed. I think I will follow her example and head for mine. Night everybody!

Matopos next!

In about ten  minutes Linda and I are heading off to Jeanette and Manie's farm in Matopos for a few days, but I thought I'd write you a line or two before we head off.

It's amazing how suddenly when Linda comes I am eating such lovely lunches out in Bulawayo. Not to mention the milkshakes... We have spent considerable hours at coffeshops/lunchplaces the last week. We have also gone to a curioshop kind of thing and bought some actually quite nice stuff. The real deal. I bought a speghetti spoon made out of aluminium from an engine block! Then John left yesterday for South Africa, which meant Heather left the house as well, so we are at the moment downsizing the household.

It is now time for Linda to drive on the wrong side of the road, change gears with the wrong hand and all this with only one sideview mirror. Yey! I am looking forward to this. A lot.  Hihi.
Right. Bye!

Antelope park

I thought I'd give you a few more words about our trip up to Antelope Park. It's just outside Gweru, and took us probably two hours to get there. Heather drove all thw way of course, in her sweet Cherrybomb (Honda Fit). So we got there at around three and Linda and I set up camp, while Heather and John had a River Tent. At four we headed out on a short gamedrive with some other people as well. We saw impala, a tawny eagle, wildebeest, zebras, giraffes, lions, some type of antilope, hartebeest and weaverbirds nests. We even got chased for a tiny bit by a lion that was being walked by some staff, because we came close to where it was hunting some zebras. The rest of the evening was spent eating and drinking and having fun until quite late.

Next morning (actually it was still night) at half past five Linda and I woke up (barely) and soon headed out on a walk with two lions and maybe ten other people. But first a long safety talk. It was quite surreal walking with them and stopping to sit next to and pat them. The sunrise as we started the walk was just so beautiful and all the photos got a lovely glow about them. Our guide took lots of photos with my camera and said he had by now probably handled around 4000 cameras on all his guided tours... Back at camp Linda collapsed in the tent again and I made myself pancakes before we then packed up everything, put it in Heather's car and checked out.

At ten we rode the elephants for an hour, which was cool. I rode Thombi, 23 years together with an elephant trainer who taught me a lot about elephants. Interesting stuff, which I of course will have forgotten in a week. Then Linda and I soaked some sun while the other two went fishing. I actually got a tan and didn't get burnt!! Can you believe it?! At three we jumped in the car and went home again after 24 hours of holiday. Sweet.

So that was our first real touristy thing. Then we had a goodbye braai on Saturday for John, who is leaving for Sweden tomorrow. And a sushi evening tonight. Good times!

Linda and I are now completely locked on an app called Wordfeud, which is like Scrabble but on the phone. So a few more words now, then we'll make some Zs. Nighty!

A fast week

Oh boy. I haven't written for a week! Anyway, we're all alive.

The week has just wizzed past. There has been a lot of card games, chatting, shopping, walking with lions, riding elephants, being slightly chased by a lion, phone-nerding, picnincs, poetry, Swedish and laughter. Life has been good one could say. I could write about so much, but don't know really where to start and we're leaving soon to give back a borrowed violin, so I think the best thing is if you check out the photos on nellieinafrica.tumblr.com. Photos should be coming up there.

By the way, I just got back my violin. Hurrah!! And mum, I met an older man yesterday who remembers you. His name was Bruce. Now time to head off. We woke up at one this afternoon and had cooked brunch in bed, so we really need to do something today before the day is over.

Toodles!

My very own Linda visit

So, Linda has now been here for more than two days, but it feels so much longer. Weird how with good friends you just take off from were you left last time. She arrived safely on Friday at lunch time with Maria, Heather and I as her welcoming commitee. I am so so happy to see her again  and be able to show her my life here. So far we have done a lot of visiting grocery shops, we've had a picninc at Hillside Dams with Sam, been total nerds when it comes to my new phone and her ipod and also spent a whole night up LAN-ing (Playing networked based computer games) with Heather, John and Ian. That's where we are now. Tired as anything.

The week before Linda came was suprisingly busy, with holiday, work, walks, cardgames, playing at a wedding, visiting the National Arts Gallery and skypeing. The arts gallery was really interesting; we went around to all the studios that artists rent there and met them and saw their work. Some of it very modern actually. Also, if you think you have heard creaking floorboards before, you should have heard the ones in there!! You couldn't even talk normally, because nobody would hear it.

So, now we are trying to plan out a bit of an adventure for Linda and I while she's here. Looks like we will be walking with lions on Tuesday anyway, and maybe riding elephants on Wednesday.

Maria is sick with the flu now, which sucks and I hope we don't get it. It's going to be interesting and nice to have a true vegetarian in the house for a month. Lovely. Now I think a nap is in order. nellieinafrica.tumblr.com is pouring out pictures at the moment, so you can check in there if you want to. Toodles!

Shopping in Bulawayo

Bulawayo is an expensive place to live. People don't earn a lot, but everything costs a lot, especially imported food, which is most of it. Also it is hard to find things that you would very easily get hold of in for example South Africa.

Today Maria and I went grocery shopping, as we alwasy do on Saturdays. We have gone around town now the last two times to see which shops are the cheapest ones and you would be surprised by the difference in price on normal things like coffe, cooking oil and butter. In one shop butter cost nearly eight dollars and at another it cost five and a half. For the exact same butter! So to maximise your wallet you have to run around town to find the cheapest of everything. But we have now found that we can manage going to just three shops, buying different things at each place.

Because here you know there are still the specialized shops like the many butcherys, dairy shop, vegetable shop, lots of bakeries, hardware shop, chocolate shop and so on. Of course we have the bigger super markets that have basically everything, but it isn't at all the same as in Sweden, where there hardly are any specialized shops left. I love it like this, except when you're trying to find one special thing and you have absolutely no idea where to start looking. Thank goodness I know people here.

The last few days have been nice, I've jammed with Vuzi and Sam, had dinner and late chat at Sam's and slept eleven hours. Yesterday Jeanette, Michelle and I went to a dancing performance with lots of lovely kids and teenagers who did things with their bodies that I will never in my life even come close to doing. One of the dancing studios here is an acrobatic dancing studio so you can just imagine... and then of course there was ballet. The whole last half was only classical ballet, which has beautiful costumes, but it did get a bit boring after a while. Everybody in the audience was freezing of course. We are probably having our last cold spell before summer now and this one has been awful, really really cold nights. Six degrees in the morning, and the house has no insulation at all...

Anyway, now skype time! See you there!

You wouldn't have known

There are always things that you sort of take for granted work the same everywhere, even on the other side of the world. Like how to put airtime (money to phone for) in you cell phone. When I got mine and was going to fill it up I asked where I could go and buy more airtime and people said "ah, just on the street corner.". This really confused me in a way. Not until I learnt that nearly every traffic light (and there are a lot of them) has a guy in a reflective vest standing there selling airtime and text cards. But bear in mind that the guys selling newspapers also have reflective vests...

And public transport... Oosh. There are lots of small taxis and then there are the ETs; Emergency Taxis. They are minibuses stuffed with people. I could never take an ET, not allowed to. So everybody here who can afford it have their own car. Otherwise you are pretty much stuck. There are no passenger trains here that I have heard of either. Between the big cities (Harare, Bulawayo, Vic Falls, Joburg) though there are bus companies who drive sometimes twice a day. 30 dollars from here to Harare.

I can just mention the power which goes on and off like a yo-yo and the water cuts (which thankfully we aren't affected by since we have a borehole). And that everything is paid in cash here.

But now I have to run. Well, actually drive. So long!

Running off!

Having holiday, sort of, is quite nice. I do so little. I spend the whole morning up until lunch time doing my morning routine, just slightly slower than normal. I go for my walk, do my fifteen minutes of strengthening exercises, have my breakfast usually while watching a movie, then a shower or bath, get dressed and it's nearly time to go to work!

The most amazing thing with my walking though is how much stronger my legs and shins are. I have now walked every morning Monday to Friday for two months, extendig the route every second week and in the beginning my shins were so sore. But somehow they have got stronger and I have now started (*drumroll*) to run on the sandy patches!! Today I ran the most, probably about a hundred meters, but before it's been around twenty. I am so happy!! I haven't run for almost two years and now it seems like I might be able to run in a sort of near future. Eish I have missed it.

Yesterday something not so fun happened. My violin broke. Again. The neckboard, which a guy in Harare glued back on like a month ago, went off ... again. So now I have to hunt Harare-goers, so they can take it up there to be fixed. Again. But the evening weighed up with positive stuff like skypeing friends.

Anyway, time for lunch. See ya!

Speeded week

Correction of last blog post: at least four tv-channels of olympics.

SO much has happened this week. I have hardly had time to write here. (Well I have, but I was just too lazy to do so.)

We had the student concert on Monday which went so so so so well and I was so proud of my kids and so happy that I couldn't stop smiling and hugging them. Then another concert after that with two Russians. Nice light classical music, but way too long.
Getting the car fixed on Tuesday and having coffee with Heather before lessons.
Wednesday assembly at Girls' College where it went... not so good with the orchestra and violin group. Lessons etc. Out for cocktails and chatting with Jeanette, Mullins, Aurie (all GC teachers) and two more.
Thursday HOLIDAY!! Getting eyebrows done, chilling on the lawn, getting a Swedih For Heather book going.
Friday haircut with the most amazing blowdry (holywood locks!!) then getting dolled up by Heather. Shopping and chatting to people I met (I actually know people in Bulawayo now...), then dinner at the Montgomerys' with the two Russian musicians as well. Lovely evening.

That was the week in superspeed. I haven't actually watched that much Olympics as I would have likde. Really miss my Swedish commentators. Anyway, tomorrow going shopping then jamming with Sam.

Trivia 1: John has bought his ticket to Sweden and is leaving end of August. Sad, but I get why.
Trivia 2: Linda is arriving in less than two weeks!!
Trivia 3: I am getting a Sony Ericsson Xperia Go sent out to me with Linda jippie yo!
Trivia 4: Soooo tired. Just thought I hadn't written here in an age.

Night everyone!

Olympics start, term ends

Sunday, second day of Olympics. That's what it's all about right now. Three tv-channels of it, so I keep on switching. Nobody else here joins me so I get to choose exactly what to watch. Though I do miss my Swedish commentators and tv-warmups. What is so nice is that I now cheer along Sweden, Zimbabwe and South Africa. Lots of athletes and lots of competitions looove it. Yesterday I snoozed at the tv from half past six in the evening listening to the commentary of the womens' fencing and then woke up a bit more for the swimming.

Perfect end to a day of driving around the academy band and instruments, since we played at Jill's 80th birthday party for a few hours. I have never ever before improvised on the violin so much and for so long. Sometimes I sort of startled myself with "Wow, I'm not concentrating and it still works!!". The band this time was made up of a keyboard, base and the drums plus me. The party was a cheese, dip and sip so an amaaaazing buffet of cheeses, dips, crisps and snacks. Such nice cheeses as well, I really love special cheese.

Friday also had nice touches to it; visited the new bakery while it was being set up, got an extended visa (YEY!!!), some last lessons before the school holidays start, trying out a new violin for a student, watching True Blood with Heather while solving the world's problems and then a night out with great people. I can feel the term is coming to an end, which will be nice, but I will miss my gorgeous Girls' College girls.

Now I can feel my back getting into pain mode again, an all too common occurence theese days, so I better get on my feet and move around.

Happy Olympics-Watching!

Student concert ahead

This week has started of very well. On Monday Heather and I planned just about the whole trip we're going to do when Linda comes here (3 weeks and 2 days left). Great fun! We're doing Vic Falls, Hwange, Chipangali, Antelope Park, Harare, Chinoiy caves, Nyanga, Matopos and maybe Manama later on with Maria. Hopefully both Heather and John will be able to come with us around the country. Then Heather and I had another coffe (!!) and I had work, sort of not that much to do. And in the evening we ate chinese take away stuff. Yummy!

Yesterday I did two hours of filing for Maria. Brain dead work, but thought I should help a bit now in the hecticness of moving from their factory on the outskirts of town to the take away place they started leasing a few days ago. There is a lot of moving stuff about and Maria has moved her office home, so she is home most of the time nowadays. After the filing we did a bit more planning before I rushed off to have three lessons.

I am getting a bit nervous now, because on Monday we have our end of term student concert and I'm going to have nearly all of my students in it, playing Engelska från Småland. Nobody has really heard my students play yet, since I didn't have any of them in the last concert, so I really hope they will think my teaching is ok. This evening we are having a little group session so that they will have played once together before the concert anyway. Iiiih, such fun!

I spent Sunday night at Manie and Jeanette on the farm and guess what I saw when I went for a walk? Kudus! They were a bit suspicious of me, but jumped over the fence maybe hundred meters ahead of me. And then in the evening they ate just outside the garden fence. Lovely. And I saw Mongooeses (spelling?!) and Impala. Good times!

Now my lunch should be done, better eat fast so I'm not late for my first lesson today. Byeee!

Unspoiled Zimbabweans in an Ice Age

You would think that being from Sweden I would manage really cold temperatures. But here it is now 20 degrees in the shade and I was freeeezing inside. So I moved outside into semishade, but there is a wind, which cools me down just as well here.

This week that's been has been one of the coldest this winter. Apparently it snowed down South, but thankfully we don't come that close to the minus degrees. Then I really would have died. It has also been a week of power cuts. On Monday we didn't have any power at the Academy and Wednesday we had two. That's sort of what it's been like all over. People are talking of Hwange powerstation being down, or big debts not been paid or the zesa workers going on strike. Anyhow, it's a bit annoying.

I collected a parcel yestarday that mum had sent, with a Aftonbladet (newspaper) and Fotoguiden (photo magasine) (both from March) and Joe said how strange it was reading what the Swedes were complaining about. Such little things compared to here. It's true, but you get used to life here in a way. You know to make backup plans or just go with the flow. Take it as it comes. Such a difference from Sweden. People in Sweden have asked me what the biggest difference between here and there is and I've had to think really hard, because everything is so different. But I think I've come to one conclusion anyway and that is the way of looking at life. We talk of I-country problems in Sweden, luxury worries. When you don't have any really life threatening problems. Here you don't find that way of thinking at all as much. Only amongst the top top classes, and that still isn't anywhere close to what it's like in Sweden. People have bigger things to worry about here, more pressing matters to overcome and to survive. Already now people are suffering from too little rain the summer that was. Hunger, water rationing and stuff like that. But still they are so friendly and happy and thankful. They know what a life is worth. Really. They aren't spoiled like we Europeans are. We are spoiled with easyness, everything works and is stable. It has made me so much more aware of how lucky I was to be born where I was. I have got so many luxurys for free and not really realised it.

And despite having alot of problems I nearly like life here more. Parts of it anyway. The tempo, the sun, the mostly helpful and friendly people and having a relaxed life, not at all as stressful as I had in Sweden. When I came here first I went mad if I stayed on the plot for a whole day and did nearly nothing. I could not relax. Now I often spend a whole day at home filling it with only sleep, tv, moives, books, internet, cooking and a walk about the garden. I don't feel like the day is wasted. So nice. But I do still need to get out a lot, two days of doing nothing is the maximum; then I do go mad. Yesterday was a deep laze day, so today I have skyped my dear Swedish family + gran for two hours which made most of my day. Then Maria came back from Kariba as well, and I hope I'll be able to go out to Matopos later today. So the day is filling up with fun stuff.

Right, that is quite enough talking, better get going with life.
African hugs to you all!

The Caffeine Trip

Ahh, I have now come to the one stage in life I have always dreaded. When I have had my first cup of coffe something that I have liked. The story goes as following:

Yesterday afternoon around 3 o'clock I went to the supermarket, which lies very close to a chocolate shop, that also sells drinkable things like hot chocolate and ... coffe. I had recently tasted a Caramel Cafe Latte (I have no idea how you spell it in English, when it really isn't English at all, anyway) that Heather had bought and actually liked it. So I thought I should try a different taste and see if I like that as well or if it would be to coffeish. To my horror I actually really liked the Chohoclate Cookie Cafe Latte that I bought. So within half an hour it was gone and I started speaking very fast, being very happy chappy and probably irritatingly perky. I had two lessons and they just flew past. I ran everywhere and my eyes felt so big. I got home sometime after five and sat chatting to Joe and John with my legs bouncing all the time. I couldn't sit completely still. Thankfully I managed to go to sleep later on though.

Obviously my caffeine tolerance is way down there. I remember Claire you told me I should never drink coffe because I would get so hooked on being so awake. You were so right!! I felt like I'd never been so full of energy in my life and I would love to be like that all the time! But. The cafe latte at that chocolate shop cost $2,50 each so I can't drink them everyday anyway... I have been calculating and thinking it over and I might go for two or at the most three a week. On really busy days. Eesh, I really don't want to be hooked on anything, especially not coffe. (Yoghurt dos not count.)

So. Now I am soon off to buy sushi ingredients so we can have it tonight. Yum!!
Goodmorning!

The Wedding Weekend

This weekend has been one of, if not the best, since I arrived here in Zim. We went up to Harare on Friday at lunchtime and got back yesterday around five. It ended up being only Maria, John and I who went up and then we left Maria there to go on a houseboat on Kariba with some of the others for nearly a week. When we arrived at Tom (Maria's cousin) and Wendy's house we were not the only ones there and it filled up as the evening went on. Quite a few Swedish speaking people (all old). After dark sometime we were guided to Tom's office where we three were staying, on matresses on the floor. Huge big house. Before saying goodnight we watched the second Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. Sooooooooo funny. We laughed and laughed and laughed so hard. There was one part were Sherlock rides a little pony and we actually rewinded like three times because it was so funny!

Next day we took a short trip to the fleemarket, where Maria bought nailvarnish and we met some of the Aussies who had come back from the roadtrip and were getting ready for the wedding as well. After a pizza each with Maria stressed out about it taking so long time we were going to be late, we got back home showered and so on and ended up with me doing a french braid on Maria while John painted her nails... But we got to the meeting point in time anyway. We jumped onto a bus they had to take us out to the wedding spot, about 45 minutes out of town, up on a big hill. The way the bus and cars drove up to it, over fields and big rocks was amazing, though at one point we thought we were really going to tip over.

The wedding ceremony was so lovely and pretty and nice. The whole village below the hill where there and watched as well. After photoshoots we headed back through the African sunset to a café that Dean's (the groom, Tom's son) sister and mother owned which was beautifully decorated. Everybody under a huge tent with a band playing as well. So many of the Australians were really good musicians, since Sophie (the bride) plays cello superwell. The reception was full of speeches, food, chatting, drinking and music.

I decided quite late that since Dean had a little bit of Swedish blood in him I would play him a Swedish polska. But there were no violins there, so I asked one of the girls who had played viola at the ceremony if I could try to play it on her viola. She said yes, but that it was a really bad one she had borrowed from somewhere here. It was bad, but I managed to get it to sound all right anyway. Then the other viola player said I should borrow hers instead, because it was better, so I said thank you and did. After playing the polska once the whole African band joined in and it sounded really amazing, such fun! When I then went to pack up the viola the owners boyfriend (an amazing cellist) came and told me that yes, that viola was a real bargain, they got it for 20 000 dollars, when it really was worth 40 000 ...!!! And the bow as well was worth 6000 ... Ahhh!!!! Nearly had a heartattack. Apparently it was a 210 year old Engligh antique viola that I had been bashing around out there!!!! Oh boy, I still can't get my head around it...

After that we danced 'til we were dripping. The Australians really were so so so nice, I loved them! Slowly but surely people dropped off and Maria took the car home. John and I got back half past four after a truly wonderful night. In the morning we dropped off Maria and then headed straight for Pizza Inn. No hangover can be really cured without pizza and a coke. The drive home was easy and nice with blasting music and only one road block which we were waved through.

As soon as I got home I then phoned Jill and asked if I could fetch the car, which I could and I now have a not so bright yellow Nissan Sunny again!! Yey!! Amazing, it is so nice to have a car...

Right, this novel should be finished by now. Filled up with new photos now, so should be arriving at nellieinafrica.tumblr.com soon enough.


Tjoho!!

Heading for Harare

I am now desperately trying to remember what I am going to forget in my packing for going to Harare tomorrow... I always forget something, just trying to minimise the forgetfullness-damage. We are leaving tomorrow lunchtime and Dean and Sophie's wedding is about the same time on Saturday. Then we head back home on Sunday, except Maria who gets to spend a few days on a houseboat on Kariba... Lucky fish. I told you the wrong thing before about who was who. Tom is Maria's cousin and Dean is his son.

So, I've borrowed a dress from Heather, I've tried to patch up one of the bags Molly tried to eat and I've at long last found a make up shop so I have some of that as well. Now I just need to do my one lesson tomorrow and then we should be good to go. But you know me, I'll be running around last minute anyway, At least I packed the night before this time! Packing while skypeing friends as well. Lovely to see your faces again!

On Sunday/Monday I am at laaaaaaast getting a car. I can't tell you how happy I will be. Materalistic as it may be, it will make my life so so so much easier.

No, now it is time for bed, I have to get up early tomorrow... 07.30. yew, can you imagine?!? I'll have to put the alarm on quarter to seven, so I have a really long time to snooze it. The earlier I wake up, the longer I have to snooze. True story. Anyways, night night, see you next week. I've started a food series on my tumblr, so have a look there if you want. Bye!!

Halfway through!!

Today is the seventh, a Saturday, the second weekend of July. I came here on the seventh of January, a Saturday, the second weekend of the month. This means that I have been here exactly six months!! I have only half a year left here. It's weird, because time has gone so fast at the same time as I feel like I've been here such a long time. So much has happened, I have experienced so much and yet sometimes (not that often though) it feels like I just left Sweden. Every week here I learn something new.

Yesterday Olle and Karin came here, Maria's uncle and his wife. They are here for Dean and Sophie's wedding in Harare, which we are also going to. They are a lovely old couple. So they are visiting us this weekend, which is nice, but a little too much Swedish for my taste. Today we did a bit of a tourist shopping tour and it was lovely seeing all the lovely African stuff, but my right shin was sore so it spoiled it a bit. Tomorrow we might go to Matopos, we'll see. They are soon heading off with Maria and Joe to some event, while we youngsters have a braii here. Nice!

Happy Halfways!

Happy Birthday Ella!!

Phew, I am tired. Jeanette's daughter Talita had her 22nd birthday yesterday and we went out to celebrate her, so I got home rather late. This morning then wasn't the best. First of all zesa had gone, so no internet to see if my present to Ella had arrived, no toast and worst of all no hot water in the baths, only a slow drizzle in the shower... AND to top it off I had aready eaten up my weeks worth of yoghurt. Not to mention banging my head into the bathtub while having a blonde moment (stupidly thinking I would whip my wet hair into the bathtub...). So all in all not the best of mornings, but it got better when Jeanette and Talita picked me up and we on the way to GC stopped off at a bookshop. Haven't been into one in six months! Though at home I have found some of the Harry Potter books, so I do have some mindnumbing stuff.

But none of my problems really matter today, because today is Ella's 18th birthday!!! I so wish I could be there. It sounds like it's going to be a good party with lots of friends and family. One of the first things I realised with horror when I thought of coming here was that I'd miss her birthday, not a happy thought. But time is sort of unstoppable and I will have many more of her birthdays to celebrate. So anyway, today my thoughts will go repeatedly to my little-sister. Love you lots and Happy Birthday Ella!!

Just have to tell you as well how friendly people are here, so nice. On Wednesday's morning walk I met an elderly/older man who also was a walker and we started talking and said we should maybe keep each other company sometime for a walk in Hillsaide Dams, where I can't walk alone for safety reasons. Though he did mention that the day before he had walked 30 km, so I was slightly intimidated. But just meeting somebody on the road and chatting like that; it doesn't happen the same way in Sweden. I like it.

So, now I am supposed to meet to guys who might want me to play at a fashion show, fun!
Tjingeling!

I have Internet!!

Yeah, it's amazing; we've got it at last!! And for a little while now we have unlimitited internet as well. Jippie yo!! We are downloading heaps now. Hehe. Anyway, if you feel like skypeing me, please just contact me and we'll make a plan. I want to skype you! Right bedtime. Nighty-nighty!

Australians for breakfast

Another week is coming to an end, but not in a dull way. Apparently we have internet at home now!! Can't wait to go home and check it out. At the moment I'm at Girl's College waiting for Jeanette to come back from the academy.

Phew I am tired. I don't hink I have fully recovered from getting up just after six yesterday to be able to go to immigrations with Maria. Everything ok. Last night Tom (foget how he is related to my zim-family now) came down from Harare and spent the night at us. Very nice evening with lots of jokes from John and Ian (friend), who were looking up fun trivia on their phones. Tom is down here because of a load of Australians who are coming up for a wedding, Dean and Sophie's. (I think Dean is a cousin of Maria. He is quite young anyway.) The couple are lovely people, and all their friends,  are also really nice. This morning we had breakfast with the gang, including some friends who had already arrived, at the National Arts Gallery. It's a lovely old building with very nice breakfasts. Thankfully the breakfast was after nine...Then Heather and I went back to GC, where Vuzi, Ben, William and another guy were playing at break time for the girls, who absolutely loved it! Fun! (I gave my camera to Heather to get some pictures and then realised afterwards that I had forgotten to put in the memory card...)

Anyway, I feel like I can hardly put together a sentence properly, so I better phone Jeanette and see where she is. Ah, she just came! Perfect! Have a nice weekend!

Glad midsommar i efterskott Sverige!

After nearly a week of internetlessness I am going back to the academy and am ready for business as usual. The weekend that we just left was exeat weekend, which here is half term and means that schools close early on Thursday and open again on Tuesday. And since all the kids were off I didn’t have any lessons then either. Instead I went to a braai at Thembi’s on Saturday, which was nice, and then spent the night and half next day there as well. I slept on the sofa, which for once was way too short for me, but I managed without any problems thank goodness. It was quite funny when Ben, Vuzi and William were supposed to get the fire started, they were all sure it would be really easy and then none of them managed to get it started, so I had to do it! Haha, I had a good laugh about that one. Thanks for all the braai-training dad!  

Another interesting thing that evening was that I got a lesson in how to make sadsa. It’s like a really really thick porridge made out of mealiemeal (majsmjöl), and you eat it with your meat and vegetables, like rice or potatoes. But it is actually quite a skill to get it good. I wasn’t fast enough with the whisking, so Thembi had to take over. But I did get a souvenir from the sadsa-making; a nice boil from where the superduper hot boiling sadsa splashed onto my hand…

Then yesterday Vuzi, Sam ( a very musical student) and I got together and played around with lots of different instruments to make some interesting music. We were all interested in stuff like Sigur Ros, Mogwai and other post rock/alternative music, so that’s mostly what we did. It was such great fun, I absolutely loved it! The two top instruments that morning were both Sam’s doing; playing with a violin bow on a saw or electric guitar. Amazing. We are now looking into getting a looping station, but they’re all so expensive and far away, so we’ll see when that happens. It would be so cool if we had one.

Yesterday evening Vuzi and I also played at like a couple’s evening, which was sort of a marriage course I think. We had fun though, playing for a while and then getting dinner (and a looovely apple pie for dessert (really, people should always pay me in desserts)), so it was a successful evening. We even improvised a bit at the end, which I never ever do, but it went well and was fun.

Now I should head off to the academy. (I’m at home, writing in word again.) So toodles everyone, pictures should be tripping off to tumblr soon soon.

Chocolate on wheels

Sitting in bed, ready to sleep after having watched the movie Chocolat and eaten a few squares of Cadbury's chocolate mousse bar. Heaven. The chocolate I got from Jeanette today, when she came back from South-Africa. I had earned it by being her today; taking all her classes in the morning and then all her piano lessons in the afternoon. The piano lessons were such fun, I think I might change and become a piano teacher instead! The kids were gorgeous and it was so much easier than teaching violin. Ten times easier, even though I'm only on book two and all the kids I had today were ahead of me. Don't get me wrong; I love teaching the violin as well, but then I need to help so much more, since they're nearly all beginners and some can hardly hold the bow. And today was just different, a fun break.

Tonight I also gave back Jeanette her car. She lent it to me on Friday, since they were going down south and it would help me. Typically on Sunday they then dug up our driveway because of a water leak and I couldn't use it anyway... But I did use it today and I loved it. Last Thursday was the first time I drove in nearly ten weeks. Weird not to have driven for so long. The only thing I noticed after such a long time off the road was that I drove too much on the left side again, just like when I started driving on the left side when I came here. I sort of drift over to the left very easily. But after only one or two turns in the car I'm fine again.

I'm hoping to find a car I can rent from someone I know, because I am going mad having to ask people for lifts all the time and being dependent on them. I want to be able to move around the place not burdening anyone else. But we'll see how it goes, you never know how things will turn out here. Until then I have my taxi Jeanette, who I pay with Sibelius helping and things I bake.

But now my eyelids are drooping too much. I will post this in the morning when I get internet. So in that case: Good Morning to you all, have a nice tomorrow!

Skiing times are on their way

I have now asked dad to register me for the 2013 90 km cross country ski race Öppet Spår. Yep yep. (Pepp!)

This means that I will have to say goodbye to the somewhat laid-back lifestyle that I have accuired since April. Watching a lot of tv, lying in bed forever and sitting down too much. So, on Sunday I made a plan for fitness and snared in Maria into it. She now has to ask every evening if I did my morning walk. If I didn't she won't buy me yoghurt when she goes shopping on Saturdays. I started on Monday with quite a short walk, but for every second week I will add another block to the walk and in a few months it will be very long and I will have to run at least parts of it to be able to get around before work starts. We just have to hope that my shins will be fine with this.

I have always had a trouble with motivation when it comes to these kind of things and wondered what would actually be needed for me to to it. It seems like I have found the one way to make me get out of my warm bed before eight o' clock, put on my shoes and get out of the house without giving up half way and going back to bed again; the fear of missing out on one kg of yoghurt (which has to last as long as possible since I only get one a week). And it works because Maria does the shopping and will not buy it if I haven't done my walking.

I must say though, it took me more than one hour of snoozing on Wednesday before I realised the danger I was putting myself in by not getting up (one week of yoghurtlessness). But of course I do love it once I've gotten outside the gate. Seeing the dust swirl in the morningish sun and feeling my pulse quicken. Sometimes it actually feels like a Swedish spring day, the sort of cold weather, but warm sun. Gorgeous.

Right, time for orchestra, so I better start unfolding the music stands. How hard can it be to unfold a music stand correctly when we've even had a short lesson about how to do it?!? Haha, anyway. Bye for now!

Ps. Happy Birthday Mum!!

Fruit salad

Friday and I am soon going home, having been at Girls’ College all day. If I’m not whisked off by Jeanette to a music department thingy at Petra High School where GC’s Marimba band is playing. It is quite probable that I might be. 

This week has past in a flash. I nowadays have the mornings completely free, all to myself, which for me is heaven. Anybody who has seen me in the really early hours of the day knows that at that stage I am not to be talked to, hardly even looked at. It is so nice not being tired all day because I got up too early for my body and brain. I get home late instead, which is fine with me, because then the evenings become relaxing. Ever since the festival finished I have just taken it easy at home. Recuperating. I found Harry Potter books (all except number 6 and 7), which is very relaxing reading. Add first one movie and then two oranges from the garden and you have a summary of my evening after dinner.

We have so many oranges now Joe keeps on nagging me to eat more and more. I am certainly not complaining. And they have even more trees at work, so Maria has planned on making lemon curd and marmalade tomorrow. I’ll probably end up helping her, if I don’t go to the bendover with Thembi, our office lady. Plus I noticed a basket of grenadillas/passionfruits on the kitchen table the other day, so add that to my fruit eating mission and I’m quite happy. Yesterday Maria and I were out in the garden picking garlic chives (gräslök med vitlökssmak) for our home made cream cheese and she pointed to the paw-paw tree in the garden, which was full of big, and still growing, paw-paws. I can’t wait for them to get ripe. Mmmm…

Right, time to go. I am apparently/obviously coming with to this music department thingy, so better get going.  

I hope you’re all well and have a lovely weekend!

Hugs from the south

The twentysecond weekend

Hey everyone, I hope your weekend was lovely, because mine definitely was. First Friday dinner with the performers remaining and their hosts, which was really great fun. Despite my age, which was mocked quite a bit. I got to sit at the fun table, with Jeanette and Marnie, the Academy's musical director Rose and her husband, the conductor from SA, Piet Mullman, the guitarist Morgan Szymanski from Mexico/London and his host Allan. We laughed a lot, ate gorgeous food (at 26th on Park), had good conversations and actually didn't freeze too bad. I nowadays wear my longjohns nearly every day which helps. Then I went out to see some friends I hadn't seen for over a month, but the maturity level dropped a bit too fast for me to think it was as good as the marvelous dinner.

Saturday was spent with Jane Austens best book (you better know which one it is) and then I made chokladbollar. Mmmm! (Sugarfilled cocoa balls sort of.) Maria and I proceeded to play cardgames and watch a romcom.

Sunday I went with Jeanette and Marnie to a farm outside Figtree to meet other farmers and families for a braii. We made fruit salad with perfectly ripe paw-paw/papaya in it (Mum, how on earth do you spell paw-paw?). It also had strawberries in it, which made me think of the Swedish midsommer quickly approaching. On the way back to Jeanette and Marnie's farm we took a road that used to be very good, but not any longer. It was very ... skumpig. Anyway, we watched a bit of the Queen's Diamond Jubilee thingy on the Thames and went to bed. But not before we walked outside to see the Kudu that was grazing just next to the house. I then fell asleep on an electrical blanket and woke at the absolutely ghastly hour of 05:40 to get into town in time. Can you imagine me being even remotely alive at that time of day??

So. I hope you had just as nice a weekend and are ready for another week of work and school. I have loaded nellieinafrica.tumblr.com with pictures, so you're welcome to check it. Now I better photocopy some music for this evening's little string group here at the Academy, before zesa goes.

Hej svej leverpastej!

Hej svenskar

Jag har tro det eller ej lite smått hemlängtan igår och idag.

The festival is over. Done. Finito. It has definitely been the most hectic week sincce I got here. Eesh. We were all worked to the bone, but it was fun as well. Great socialising, amazing musicians and artists, lovely wine and a lot of music. Friday was my only day without a performance, from Tuesday to Sunday. I would like to tell you all, but at the moment that isn't the best idea. Things are a bit ... touchy right now at the academy. There was quite a bit of unwanted drama and attention around one person. Still is mind you. But anyway there was the amazing concert with the 500 kids, a fully packed hall for Carmina Burana (people were sitting in the aisles), 500 people watching the pop concert and the final orchestral concert. Richard had written hilarious verses that were read out in between the different animals in the Carnival of the animals by Saint-Saëns. The one that had me in stitches especially was the tortoise, who finished off with the line (read very slowly) "As a tortoise I don't want to be a winger, but at least a turtle gets to be a ninja..." !!!! Haha, I laughed so hard.

So. Now I am so glad the festival is over. At last I can sleep and sit down in the middle of the day and do nothing for an hour. Wednesday I was away from home for 17 hours, and Sunday I was home two o'clock... That's the sort of beating all of us have taken. But still, it was amazing having the proffessional musicians here. Mesmerising listening to them play. And they were all so friendly and nice. They have now gone to the falls and Hwange for a few days, the lucky fishes. I have booked this weekend at Jeanette's farm, to get away from town and relax a bit after all the stress. And this time I am pulling Maria with me. We both need it.

Winter is really getting going here now. Yuck it's cold. I know I've lived through much much worse, but then all the houses were heated. Here it's colder being inside than outside, unless there's a wind. And I definitely don't have enough winter clothes (should have listened more to mum when I was packing...) so I freeze. But we're on a mission now to find more jerseys for me. Soon maybe I'll even start using my knitted gloves and winter jacket. I think I have my mother's blood. I have never before slept with socks on, not even when it was minus thirty. Who would have thought I would when I was in Africa?

Right, I shouldn't write too much. We're back to everyday life now, so I should be able to write more often than I have the last two months. Bye bye!