no hair and no earrings!

The two things which are most commented on in the village as regards Eve are her lack of hair and earrings. Her lack of hair is sometimes put down to us having shaved it off - something which people here do if their baby has a lot of hair - but they are slightly doubtful whether we'd do that at the coolest time of year. I explain that no, all three of our babies were born with very little hair, and they shouldn't expect to see Eve with much hair for quite some time!

People also ask me why we didn't get her ears pierced. I explain that at home it is quite rare to pierce babies' ears, and that she'll probably get them pierced when she's older. When I said I was fourteen years old when I had mine done, I got a puzzled look and an attempt to correct me with, "Four months?" "No no, fourteen years!" Someone else present exclaimed, "Then how do you tell boys and girls apart?" and I explained that hairstyle or clothes usually indicate it.

Blue for boys and pink for girls isn't a custom here. Another missionary friend was asked whether her baby was a boy or a girl, and when she answered "a boy", was presented with a little pink and white sparkly pyjama outfit.

One thing I do appreciate about people in our village is that they may exclaim over differences, but generally they don't tell me I'm doing things wrong. Another example is that I've been told that if I were Beninese I would wrap Eve up a lot warmer (ie. woolly jumpers and hats even in 25°C heat) but they seem to accept that that's not what we do, and that she doesn't seem to be suffering for it. I do put a little cotton hat on her if we're going out in the mornings, as I don't want to shock people too much by seeing her little hairless head exposed when they are feeling cold! And I did put several layers on her to go to church, but ended up having to peel some of them off as she was getting hot and sweaty and was squeaking in protest!

People are also interested by my sling, since babies are carried on women's backs here. But again, if I explain that this way she can hear my heart beating and I can see her, they understand. I have started to carry her on my back occasionally, but I'm slightly nervous of the process of getting her onto my back, since it involves her starting off lying on my back with nothing holding her there!

In the sling:

Photos of Eve's first Sunday at church

 

These photos were taken by the church photographer on the day we "presented" Eve to the church. The pastor here is Pastor Samuel with whom I work in the translation team.

new arrival meets the village

While maternity leave means that I am not directly doing translation work at the moment, having a new baby has made us feel part of the community in new ways. First of all, we have had visits from people who want to congratulate us and meet the new arrival.

Secondly, we welcomed Eve into the church family last Sunday. Traditionally among the Monkolé people, a new mother stays in her house for 8 days with her baby. When she comes out, there is a ceremony called « ama ku fita », which means « bringing the child out ». There are various rites to be carried out as a way of bringing the child into the community. The church use the name « ama ku nyisi », meaning « showing the child », and now Christians present their baby to the church, thank God publicly for the gift of their child, and the church prays for the child and parents. We were happy to be able to do this for Eve, and felt loved and encouraged by our Monkolé brothers and sisters as we did so.

We also needed to start Eve's vaccinations. The first one is the BCG, and Marc and I went to the local hospital in Kandi last week, where at the entrance we bumped into two women from our church. It turned out that one of them, Marie, had given birth a week after me (also to her third), and she had come to the hospital for the same reason as us, only to be told that since there was a meningitis vaccination campaign going on, the BCG wouldn't be given until the next week.

So in the end Marie and I took our babies down to the hospital together this week. I always get a bit frustrated at the medical system here, as it is difficult to understand how things work, so going with someone who worked at the hospital was definitely a bonus! We had to wait for an hour, while things got set up and some pregnant women were given the injection, and then we were seen first. To be fair, we had been among the first to arrive, but we did also have the double advantage of Marie being an insider and me being white. We should be able to have the following vaccinations done in the village, by a team who come out once a week from a health centre.

I was glad to have someone to wait with, too, and it was good to chat in Monkolé to someone who I don't know so well. And I don't generally have all that much contact with other women my age in the village. So we were able to talk about our children, our birth experiences, Marie's work as a nurse and so on.

Next vaccinations around December 20th ("Happy Christmas, Eve!")

Welcome to the world, Eve!

Eve's birth went very well, and I was very glad that we had chosen to stay in Benin and to go to Bembéréké (a hospital started by the mission over 50 years ago). The Beninese midwife we had - the wife of the hospital director - has delivered missionary babies before, and isn't shocked by our idea that the husband should accompany his wife. She is also very experienced and very calm and reassuring.

We went to a private room in the maternity wing at 3pm, and things went fast from then on, as I gave birth at 5.10pm, only about ten minutes after arriving in the delivery room. The midwife was saying, "Oh, please! At least let me get my gloves on!" as Eve suddenly decided she was coming in a rush!

Here is the house we stayed in:

Me and Eve a couple of hours after her birth:

Marc and Eve two days later:

All three children after we got home:

Birth!

Eve Sofia was born on November 8th, at 5.10pm, weighing 3.020kg (about 6 and a half pounds, I think!). More details and photos to come when we get home to a (hopefully) better internet connection next week!

Written November 5th ...

... only posted now due to terrible internet connection!

Sorry for my silence over the last month! The month went extremely quickly – our annual SIM Benin-Togo conference took place from October 14^th to 18^th, and since I was involved with the organisation that took up quite a lot of my thinking time! I am grateful to God for a smooth and non-stressful conference, with thought-provoking Bible messages and some lovely times of fellowship with other missionaries.

Then I just had one week at home to get myself sorted to come to the mission hospital, since it had wisely been suggested that I move on-site at 38 weeks. I didn't at all expect to give birth so early (having given birth at 39+6 and 41+3 in the past) but I would have found it a bit stressful to be at home at that stage. Travelling is not recommended at night (due to bandits and badly-lit fast-moving other trafic) and trying to get the whole family in the car in a rush in the middle of the night did not appeal!

Last week I was here on my own, as Marc and the boys brought me down, stayed a night and then went back home for the rest of the week. That way our short-termer Matthieu could teach Simon for another week and Marc could get work done which he can do more easily at home … plus oversee the installation of a new water tank. But since Saturday they have been here with me – Marc is teaching Simon again and getting with other work in the afternoons. I'm glad, as I didn't really want to give birth without Marc being here!

We have a very comfortable house to stay in, and it is quite a luxury to have reliable power and water, not to mention people who come on-site to sell vegetables and chickens. It is quite a novelty to have a man turn up with chickens tied to his bicycle, to choose the one I want and have it killed, plucked and cleaned outside the house. It ends up in the fridge looking as if I bought it at the supermarket … but of course fresher!!

There are several other missionaries working in the hospital or on-site at the moment, and they looked after me very well last week, inviting me over for meals so that I wouldn't miss my family too much!

So now we are playing the waiting game, though since I'm not 40 weeks until Friday, I don't want to think of it as waiting until then!! If this one is as late as Benjy was, I still have another two weeks to go … and as I said, it's very nice being here, and I'm able to get on well with translation work, so what's the rush? I suppose I could be impatient to see my baby, but I remember last time thinking that babies are far less work on the inside than the outside, so perhaps I should just enjoy the (relative) peace and quiet while I can!

of gods and chance

We came up against two interesting translation challenges while working on I Samuel recently. The first is a problem we have frequently, and this was just a new variation. For the Monkolé people, and indeed most people groups in this part of West Africa, there is one supreme God, but there are also spirits who are worshipped and sacrificed to through idols (often represented by a tree or a rock or another natural object). This makes it difficult to translate when the Bible talks of « other gods » … not that the Bible is not mono-theistic, but it recognizes that other peoples worship their own idea of a god (or gods). It is not possible, grammatically speaking, to put « god » in plural in Monkolé, or to talk of « their God », because that supposes the existence of others. So when it comes to saying « the God of the Israelites », we tend to translate it with « God, the Lord of the Israelites ».

In I Samuel 4, the Israelites are fighting against the Philistines, and are losing. So they send for the ark of the LORD. When the Philistines hear that the ark has come into the Israelite camp, they say something along the lines of, “God has come into their camp … who shall rescue us from these powerful gods?” (In the Hebrew “god” is first singular then plural.) For people like the Monkolé, who believe in one supreme God, this makes it sound as if the Philistines are saying that this one supreme God is on the side of their enemies (and “gods” must be translated as a singular “God”).

In chapter 5, the Philistines have captured the ark of the LORD in battle, and taken it back to their own country where they place it in the temple of their god Dagon. The first night it is there, the statue of Dagon falls on the floor in front of the ark. The second night not only does it fall, but its head and hands fall off. Then the people of the city are plagued with tumours, and they realise that keeping the ark in their city is perhaps not such a good idea. So they say, “The God of Israel did this. He is the one causing trouble for us and for our god Dagon.” Even when the translators choose (as they do in many English versions) to write the first occurrence of “God” with a capital “G” and the second with a lowercase “g”, it seems clear that for the Philistines these two gods were beings of the same nature … which didn't seem at all the case in our Monkolé translation which said “God, the Lord of the Israelites, did this. He is the one causing trouble for us and for our idol Dagon.”

We discussed this as a team, but couldn't find a satisfactory solution. However, when I talked with a missionary colleague who is a translator in another Beninese language, she asked whether it wasn't possible to use the word for “Lord” for both. So instead of “God, the Lord of the Israelites”, simply “the Lord of the Israelites”, and then instead of “our idol Dagon”, “our Lord Dagon”. I went back with this proposition to my translators, to find out whether that was acceptable in Monkolé, and as we looked through the different passages we were able to work it in. Of course, we'll have to wait and see what our translation consultant thinks of it, but I think we may have found a fairly good way to translate so that we remain true to the mindset of the original readers while expressing it in a reasonable natural form of the Monkolé language.

The second question I had when looking at the text before working with the team, was in I Samuel 6:9. Here the Philistines say that if a certain thing happens they'll know that it is the God (or Lord!) of the Israelites who is sending the plague upon them, but that if it doesn't happen they'll know that the plague has come upon them by chance. Chance is not something which exists in the Monkolé worldview. There must always be a reason for everything, so I wondered how this would be translated. Looking at the translation, I found that it said, « otherwise we will know that this has come upon us from somewhere [else] », a translation supported by a translators' manual which is on my computer. My translators said that anyway, Christians don't believe in chance ... yet I don't feel that Western Christians see things quite the same way as Monkolé Christians ...

Nasty internet but a good month

I do apologise for my absence, but we have been wrestling with our internet connection since the end of August. We have no idea why it has got so much worse, but it does make things difficult when it comes to keeping up communication! This month we have welcomed Marc's brother, Sam, and sister-in-law, Rolande, who have been visiting for a few weeks - our first family visit! A few photos... first of all, harvesting fresh peanuts to boil for our evening meal, then playing new games with S&R:

The last two were taken last Sunday, when we went to the Monkolé church in Kandi-Fô ... it might look empty, but by the time the service got going it was packed!

a week with a difference

This week we hosted a training seminar for 2 Bible translation teams (Monkolé and Fulfuldé) and a literature translator (Baatonu) on our mission station here in Pèdè. We were taught by Dr Pierre Barassounon, who is our translation consultant. The week went very well, and it was particularly good to see the newer translators growing in confidence and understanding new concepts. A few photos:

We had torrential rain - an assault on our ears thanks to our metal roof - for about 3 hours on Tuesday morning. For those three hours it felt as if we were living under a waterfall … and when the rain slackened it looked as if we were living on an island!

It is rare that it rains so hard for so long. On the positive side, we did collect plenty of lovely clean water for washing our clothes (nicer than our orange well water) but on the negative side the ground is taking its time to soak up all that water, and we even have water rising up into our new bedroom floor - eek!

shopping

On Saturday as I drove into our nearest town, Kandi, to do our weekly shop, I remembered how Marc, baby Simon and I used to do our weekly shop on Saturday mornings at Tesco when we were at Bible College. Saturday morning may still be my shopping time, but what a different trip it is!

So I thought that for this post I would describe a typical Saturday shopping trip these days. I drive to Kandi through open countryside with trees and a few round huts dotted about. At this time of year it is all very green, and crops are growing fast. After less than ten minutes I arrive in Kandi, and drive through it on the main road, dodging motorbikes, bikes, pedestrians, sheep, goats and so on as I go … there is no pavement so we all share the not-particularly-wide road! Not-particularly-wide but pretty busy as it is the main North-South road in Benin.

I stop first at the shop which looks most like a shop in the West – it has swing doors and a TV constantly playing. The shelves are all fairly temporary-looking though, and although they do sometimes sell some things you can't find anywhere else in Kandi – Pringles, fruit juices and even Heinz salad cream – the prices of these things are such that I would rarely buy them. Instead I tend to buy cheap biscuits (for our boys and their friends), yoghurts, mayonnaise, peanuts and occasionally sausages (just the industrial sort) or butter. The person at the till is usually a youngish guy who somehow managed to work out that Marc and I belong together despite us never having been to the shop at the same time! If he isn't there it is an older woman who I think may be the proprietor. As a general rule, everyone who is running a business is friendly … though not necessarily everyone selling anything – I've had younger girls going round the streets with produce trays on their heads who were obviously selling for someone else and seemed quite sullen!

I may then go on to the pharmacy. Some of the pharmacies in Parakou look very like the bright, modern ones you find in Europe. This one however looks more like the slightly shabby ones you also sometimes find in Europe! They don't have a huge range of medicines, but are happy to order them in, and I think they are the only place I've seen shampoo for non-African hair in Kandi.

From there I drive back into town and turn off the main road into what feels like the market, though in reality there is a brand-new market standing empty (something to do with places not having been attributed yet, or not enough places to go around...) and the market sprawls all over the streets of the centre of Kandi. I can usually park in front of the small shop owned by the man who sells me flour … I say shop, but it looks more like a large alcove. He has things out on the concrete in front of it – mattresses, plastic chairs, hosepipe, lino – and inside he has sheets of corrugated iron, suitcases, oil lamps, insect spray and a host of other assorted goods. I greet him, and chat for a while, and order my weekly 5kg of flour if he has it … and if he doesn't then often his eldest son (who must be about 14) will usually run off and get it from someone else.

I leave my car there, and cross the road to find the vegetable-selling lady who brings cabbage and/or carrots and/or potatoes up from Parakou most weeks. She tends to greet me with, "Bonjour, Pèdè!", calling me by the name of the village we live in.

I then go on to greet the lady I buy onions from, and to buy onions if I need them. There are no loyalty schemes as such here, but if you build up a good client-seller relationship you usually find that prices are decreased and you get a "present" (ie. a couple of extra onions) added on. We bumped into my onion lady at a wedding in our village, which meant she got to meet Marc and the boys, and so she is even warmer towards me now than she was before! I sometimes buy spinach or "leaves" from another lady sitting next to her.

Then I go on to my tomato lady, who speaks very little French but is always equally happy to see me, and also gives me extra tomatoes every time. If any of them don't see me for a week or two they always ask if I've been away somewhere.

Last Saturday I then remembered I needed batteries too, so went back to my flour supplier. He had disappeared so I asked his son if they had batteries. They didn't, but he went running off and found some elsewhere, came back to ask me how many, went away again to get them, came back to take my money, and then did another trip to get my change for me! I would feel bad, except that I didn't ask him to!

After all that I go back to the car and drive round two corners (again dodging what- or whoever is in the road) to Rosine's shop. It looks like a very small warehouse with a front terrace. She has a fridge and a freezer and I usually buy things like sugar, rice, couscous and pasta from her, and tinned goods like evaporated milk, sardines or corned beef. Rosine is always very welcoming and, having met our boys before, sometimes sends presents of packets of biscuits home with me. And when our car got a flat tyre a few weeks ago and Marc was having it repaired just round the corner from Rosine's shop, I took the boys and we went and sat with her while we waited for it to be mended.

Last Saturday I was surprised to see a pile of three brand new fridges on her terrace. I said, "Rosine, are those yours, or are you selling them?" "Oh, I'm selling them," she replied, "Why, are you interested?" "No, what I could be interested in is a washing machine," I said, and she said, "Oh well, I can see whether I can get one if you like!" She told me that the fridge suppliers have their own lorry and so deliver directly to her, so I said that if the washing machine suppliers could deliver all the way to our house I might well be interested!

After leaving Rosine I drop into the Post Office on my way home. The main part isn't open on Saturdays, but the small room with the post office boxes is, and so I check ours. It always makes me very happy if I find post there!

And off home I go. It probably takes about as long as it used to take us to do our Tesco shop, and it's less convenient but also less expensive, and there is definitely more personal contact with the people I meet.

family fun day

While we spend most of our time living in the village of Pèdè, where our nearest missionary neighbours are 50 minutes' drive away, we do enjoy the times when missionaries get together for fun and fellowship. The mission TWR has an annual "Family Fun Day" in July or August, and we very much enjoyed the last one. They have a large property - they need it as they have a very tall radio tower - with a lake and mango grove, and 40 or 50 of us met up for some barbecuing, swimming, zip-wiring, water-fighting fun! (Fortunately none of these activities were mandatory!) Our boys spent a lot of time by the side of the river or on the rope bridge above it, and their parents spent a lot of time chatting to friends! We also enjoyed the food.

The way up to the zip wire (would this pass European safety standards?!)

a big job well done

One of the many "hats" that Marc wears is his reponsibility as our Station Manager, which means that he is the one who manages the personnel (ie. his own family!) and property of the mission in Pèdè.

Since our bougainvillea was looking "slightly" overgrown we decided we needed to do something about it, and last weekend Marc set to work.

Before:

There is a house hidden behind there, honestly!

And after:

bulls, field boundaries and colour dilemmas

Last week the translation team was joined by our translation consultant, Pastor Pierre Barassounon, to continue checking the book of Exodus. It was slow going, as we checked Exodus 19-30 (working from Tuesday morning until Friday lunchtime) and it is full of detailed laws and descriptions of the plan of the tabernacle.

What was very interesting was to hear the translators' reactions to some of the laws. For myself as an urban Westerner, laws about goring bulls, field boundary markers and suchlike don't have much practical application. I can see the point of them, but the ideas remain very abstract. We read things like,

“If a bull gores someone and that person dies, the bull shall be stoned to death, and even his meat shall not be eaten. The owner shall not be punished further. But if the bull had already gored someone, and the owner had been told yet had done nothing about it, the bull shall be stoned and the owner too shall be put to death.” (Exodus 21:28,29 my own translation back from our Monkolé version)

The translators' reaction was, “Wow, imagine if that was the law here, it would make people more careful about their bulls!” and they told the story of a bull in a nearby village which was dangerous and yet the owner, despite being warned, did nothing about it. Apparently some children, seeing that nothing was going to be done, took the law into their own hands and hamstrung the animal!

Laws on land rights are also very relevant – just looking out of the translation office window beyond the mission property we see fields which are currently being fought over in court.

When we got onto the tabernacle furnishings the challenge was to translate as accurately as possible when the language doesn't necessarily have exact equivalents. For example, the hangings are to be made of “blue, purple and crimson linen” … or in some translations “violet, purple and scarlet” … not so easy when Monkolé only has a limited range of colour words. We ended up having to say “blue, red and blue mixed with red”.

While progress was slow, there was an encouraging feeling of teamwork and mutual commitment to our task. I felt that I learned some new things about the Monkolé culture, and we all learnt things from God's word, having pored over it in detail for so many hours.

The team at work: (Left-right, Samuel, Pierre, myself and Philémon)

And a big thanks to my lovely husband who took on extra childcare duties that week to free up my time!

june in the office

The month of June is always a quiet month here. The first rains can come as early as April, but they don't really begin to come regularly until June, so that's when everyone deserts the village and goes out to their fields to plant. Some people's fields are over ten miles from the village, so they have huts out there and don't come back to the village except at the weekend. The boys and I went into the village to visit friends on Friday, only to find that all of our friends' houses were shut up and empty!

It is also a quiet month for the translation team, as the translators generally take their annual leave at this point, to work in their fields. The rest of the year, if there is work to be done in the fields it will either be members of their family or else hired workers who will do it. We were in Cotonou for a week at the beginning of June getting the boys' passports renewed and Simon signed up for his next year of distance-schooling, but I will still have spent three weeks on my own in the translation office every weekday morning!

Since we learned to use the new software, I now not only have work to do checking the Monkolé translation against the original text in Hebrew (with help from commentaries etc.), but I have plenty to keep me occupied converting computer files from their old format to the new one. We don't seem to have the most recent version of some files – but we do have obviously-more-recent paper copies – so I have been updating the files once they are in the Paratext software. Those books we have worked on recently I have also been correcting on the computer. This month I have worked on parts of Exodus, Ruth, Zechariah and Proverbs, so quite a mixture!

Writing my doctoral thesis was in some ways good preparation for this work, and not only because my doctorate was in linguistics! I also learnt to plod along day after day aiming for a very distant goal, and to be meticulous in checking details. I also learnt to work alone … but this month's isolation has made me very appreciative of the advantages of working in a team!

Next week Philémon has exams and the pastor has a training course in Parakou from Monday to Wednesday. Since I have to be in Parakou for our missionary Day(s) of Prayer Thursday and Friday, that will make yet another week where we can't work together. The week after that – beginning the 9^th July – we have a week of checking with our translation consultant. We hope to finish checking Exodus – please pray that this will go well!

Driving into a rainstorm on the (very nice!) road between Kandi and Banikoara, not far from where we live.

green things

As I mentioned before, rainy season always arrives with a series of bangs – huge thunderstorms with angry winds that rumble over our corrugated iron roof! I'm glad to say that the roof of our extension has stood up to the assault, and the worst of the storms are now behind us. A bit more rain would be welcome, say the farmers here.

After two or three rains there is a transformation, as bare earth changes in a matter of days into a green lawn … and after a few weeks into a wild jungle! Hélène, the pastor's wife, who works for us, got busy as usual this year planting things in our vegetable plot – with a little help from our boys and some evening watering from Marc.

As you can see, things are sprouting!

Some of our aubergines are already ready to eat, and the corn, okra and carrots are showing their first shoots. Apparently the cucumbers didn't « take », which will be a disappointment for Benjy, who is a big fan. Here is one of the larger aubergines:

And here is a moringa plant. This is an amazing plant whose leaves can either be cooked or put into salad. It is packed full of vitamins (look it up on wikipedia!).

a wedding at last!

Ever since we arrived in Benin, we had wanted to go to a wedding. All the other missionaries seemed to go to a lot, but at first no one we knew was getting married, and then when we started hearing of weddings either in churches we knew or of people we knew, things kept happening to stop us from attending. Rainstorms, illnesses, pregnancy sickness, being away from home … and at last a few weeks ago we were actually in our village when a couple in our church got married!

It was a big wedding, but that goes without saying really, since all weddings here are big! Not only is the whole church invited, but extended family on both sides … and family can extend a long way!! We arrived in plenty of time, and found that the wedding venue had been changed just that morning! It had been supposed to take place under a grove of trees next to the school, permission had been sought and granted … but then that morning they realised that some children needed to pass exams and so it wasn't possible to have a wedding take place under the windows! So it was held the other side of the road, next to our church, instead. We found ourselves seats in the shade, greeted people we knew and visiting pastors … and waited.

It made me smile a little to be handed the official running order for the events of the day. Everything was planned down to the last minute … and we were already running late! But the service went well, with several choirs, two pastors, the elder of another church and Marc all taking part! One thing I noticed which was very different from weddings back in Europe was how serious the wedding party all looked. I have heard that the bride shouldn't look happy about leaving her father's household, and I think in general the idea is that this is a solemn occasion and not something to be taken lightheartedly. In the photo of the wedding couple plus pastors/missionaries you will see who forgot that she shouldn't smile (good to see that the pastor next to me has a big grin too!).

After the ceremony we were ushered with the other pastors/elders into the house of our local government representative for the meal. It was huge and delicious! Pounded yams with chicken and spinach sauce, then a rice dish, and then "akassa" (a slightly-fermented millet paste). And fizzy drinks for everyone, much to Simon's delight.

building work finished!

I realise that it took so long for our new bedroom to be completely finished that I haven't put pictures up here yet, but I thought that anyone who had followed the progress of the building work might like to see it!

Here are the cupboards – not very exciting but extremely useful!

The other side of the room, with curtains and wall decorations brought back from France by my lovely hubby:

And a close-up of the decoration! 

hello baby!

Since we have been in Benin, we have had a number of particularly note-worthy cross-cultural experiences, such as my interesting time passing the Beninese driving test. We have also braved the dentist, and now we're venturing into another domain of the medical system. I am pregnant, due mid-November, and so at the end of last month when we were in Parakou we went to see a gynaecologist for a check-up and a scan.

It is a private practice, though I suspect he works at the hospital during the daytime, and so one turns up at 7 in the evening, takes a number, and waits for one's turn! A 2-hour wait in our case! Fortunately someone was babysitting our boys and so we had no worries about time. The waiting room was hot, there was a noisy overhead fan which didn't help much, and a television which showed death notices for a lot of the time we were there.

The gynaecologist was great. He felt like someone you could trust and who knew what he was doing. And the scan was better quality than I had allowed myself to hope for. The long wait was forgotten in the joy of seeing our baby for the first time, waving lazily at us! The gynaecologist was happy with the scan and allowed us to take both photos and a video with our phone! (There was in fact a print-out, but the phone photo was clearer.)

And here he or she is, Baby Deneuf #3: 

changing seasons

We have survived hot season and are now going through the most turbulent season of the year, weather-wise! As hot season gives way to rainy season, we have violent storms, which begin as dust-storms before the rain takes over.

 

Here are a few photos from last week. First the dust:

And then the rain, which entertained the boys for quite some time!

The next day was beautiful!

On Sunday night we had a thunderstorm and then constant rain all night … it didn't finish drizzling until about ten o'clock in the morning, and then we had light showers from time to time all day. It really felt like rainy season, and obviously the pastor's wife thought so, as she decided it was time to start planting our garden. Simon and Benjy have their own small hoes, and Simon in particular really got stuck into working with his: