Back to work

How is it nearly August? I keep asking myself this often, with no intelligent response. I guess time flies when you are having fun :)

So, having returned from conference, the next excitement is the Writer's Awareness workshop starting next week, which we are busy preparing for all this week. The scary thing about these workshops is that I will be teaching about 10 well educated Tanzanians about what we have found out about their languages... in Swahili! I have just about gotten halfway through the list of linguistic vocabulary to learn, but there are still the mini-lectures to translate. Urg, I don't think I could be more terrified, but as I am continually reminded, this just gives God more opportunity to take over, cos I know there is no way I can do this by myself. I would appreciate prayer though.

Otherwise, our house continues to become more house-like. We have finally arranged for our househelp to come 2 1/2 days a week, and we are looking forward to having less to do around the house as she helps us. Even simple things like chopping vegetables take so much longer here in Africa, and I often find myself spending the whole evening cleaning, cooking and tidying up without the opportunity to do something relaxing before it is time for bed. Mama Nick, our househelp (they call mums after the name of their first born child here), is a lovely lady, and we are very happy to be able to offer her work as her previous employers are leaving this week.

So, life is beginning to settle into a proper routine now that we can finally get started on the work in earnest, and hopefully we won't have to do too much long distance travelling for a long time! The next goal is surviving the workshop, then getting our house painted. I think that is enough planning for now, I can't understand how it is almost August, so planning for September is even weirder!