Over the last few months I've been trying to upload pictures into a web album, and then was going to post the address on here, but for a slew of reasons that hasn't happened yet. Here you go... little snippets of my world. The world where I wake up to people in my family chasing chickens in the yard (and eventually those chickens are then eaten), where it takes me a couple of hours to wash all my dirty clothes and hang them out to dry, where I sit and drink tea every morning in my blue room, where the sun shines directly on my room and creates , what I call, the "Easy Bake Oven" effect for several hours a day, where I get awesome drunken phone calls from the States, where cowbells are my alarm clock, where I pick lemons off the lemon tree across the road and think about all the lemonade I can make, where my pit toilet is the tiled, golden, palace of all pit toilets, where I walk to one of the coolest post offices ever and get to talk with John and Mathabele about the weather and what could possibly be in the big box I just received, where I hear Culture Spears' "Mmapula" played on repeat at the shebeen, and I wonder if I really love that song as much as I used to, where I learn so much. Yes. This is my life. Enjoy!
The main road through Metz Village. It's dirt right now, but soon it will be paved (a tar road!), they're detouring traffic and digging it up as I write. Beautiful, isn't it? Metz, with 6,000 households (and how many people actually live in those households?), is the biggest village in the immediate area.
Where I walk to pick up mail sent by you! The orange phone booth was such a tease in the beginning, there once was a phone and now there is not. My PO box is where the shadow is in the picture. It's the most fair and honest post office I know.
Snuggled right in between the hair saloon and the physiotherapist's rented rooms is the office of Maruleng Community Home Based Care. Welcome to my office! When you first walk in you must greet the whole staff (they're all very nice), and then we'll make you tea and get some bread or biscuits from the bakery, and you can sit and spend the afternoon with us.
The way the mountains look on my walk to the post office. A couple months after this picture was taken the whole yard to the left was filled with mealies (maize/corn).
MmaDiapo's house. Huge, huh? I live in her backyard, just passed the cows and the house her older brother, Daniel, is building. She works hard to keep everything looking so nice.
The green door is the door to Mmapula's room. It looks tiny and, well, I have to say, this picture isn't foolin' you... it is tiny... but it's home and I love it. I've been on quite the interior decorating kick... painting, getting shelves, MmaDiapo tiled the floor, I got a new pillow, and I've started putting things up on the walls (pictures!)... so I'll post some pictures when I have it in some kind of order. Maybe comparison ones... what it looked like when I first got it and what it looks like now? Yeah. That's my blue water barrel, too. Somehow it is always magically filled, water just appears!
The view from my room. MmaDiapo's carport, the mountains, the cows, and to the right is where Daniel's house is going up. Whenever someone asks "O dula kae?" (Where do you stay?), I answer, "Ke dula MmaDiapo" and they always assume I mean her brother, down the road, the retired principal. How do we clarify? I tell them she has the white Toyota Corolla. Things are always clarified after that. The big green drum/tank right behind her car is a rainwater tank. There is one end of a metal gutter attached to the top of the tank and the other is connected to the roof gutters... when it rains, water is collected! Right beside the tank is the tap that I get my drinking water from. Daniel is slowly building his house... he works during the week so he comes late on Friday afternoon and stays until Sunday afternoon, building it brick by brick. Brick by brick, weekend by weekend, I wonder when we'll have a completed new house?
The main road through Metz Village. It's dirt right now, but soon it will be paved (a tar road!), they're detouring traffic and digging it up as I write. Beautiful, isn't it? Metz, with 6,000 households (and how many people actually live in those households?), is the biggest village in the immediate area.
Where I walk to pick up mail sent by you! The orange phone booth was such a tease in the beginning, there once was a phone and now there is not. My PO box is where the shadow is in the picture. It's the most fair and honest post office I know.
Snuggled right in between the hair saloon and the physiotherapist's rented rooms is the office of Maruleng Community Home Based Care. Welcome to my office! When you first walk in you must greet the whole staff (they're all very nice), and then we'll make you tea and get some bread or biscuits from the bakery, and you can sit and spend the afternoon with us.
The way the mountains look on my walk to the post office. A couple months after this picture was taken the whole yard to the left was filled with mealies (maize/corn).
MmaDiapo's house. Huge, huh? I live in her backyard, just passed the cows and the house her older brother, Daniel, is building. She works hard to keep everything looking so nice.
The green door is the door to Mmapula's room. It looks tiny and, well, I have to say, this picture isn't foolin' you... it is tiny... but it's home and I love it. I've been on quite the interior decorating kick... painting, getting shelves, MmaDiapo tiled the floor, I got a new pillow, and I've started putting things up on the walls (pictures!)... so I'll post some pictures when I have it in some kind of order. Maybe comparison ones... what it looked like when I first got it and what it looks like now? Yeah. That's my blue water barrel, too. Somehow it is always magically filled, water just appears!
The view from my room. MmaDiapo's carport, the mountains, the cows, and to the right is where Daniel's house is going up. Whenever someone asks "O dula kae?" (Where do you stay?), I answer, "Ke dula MmaDiapo" and they always assume I mean her brother, down the road, the retired principal. How do we clarify? I tell them she has the white Toyota Corolla. Things are always clarified after that. The big green drum/tank right behind her car is a rainwater tank. There is one end of a metal gutter attached to the top of the tank and the other is connected to the roof gutters... when it rains, water is collected! Right beside the tank is the tap that I get my drinking water from. Daniel is slowly building his house... he works during the week so he comes late on Friday afternoon and stays until Sunday afternoon, building it brick by brick. Brick by brick, weekend by weekend, I wonder when we'll have a completed new house?
No comments:
Post a Comment