Good morning, world!

It is 9.30 on Friday morning. David has been away since Tuesday (till Sunday) at Tsumeb, Grootfontein and Tsumkwe. If you live in Tsumkwe, the nearest petrol station is Grootfontein, 375 kms away. We are so glad our ute/bakkie has a tank that will take us 1,000 kms.
Étienne woke up at 5.50 am, the first of our visitors came at 6.50 am (to water the veggies), then came another 2, then came two neighbour children to proudly show me their report for this term that they got this morning (school starts at 7 or 7.30 here, depending on your school). I was glad to finally get into shower!
School
The children are learning about maps (physical, political, contour etc). Then the ‘practical’ was designing a map of their own. Étienne spent about 20 minutes on the key (legend) before he even drew his map. His key includes tree, desert, wreck, ship, current, sea routes, swamp, river, house, church, mountains, valleys, sharks, castles, canyons, cattle, roads, air routes, birds, grass, battle, bushes, tombs, dead fish (!!!), bridges, monster, airport, harbour, fish. As you can imagine, his ‘world’ is a riot of symbols!
We played hangman one day last week. One has to stretch one’s mind when Caris chooses a word as she can be imaginative in her spelling! Everyday she wants to do craft!
Inter alia
We went to karate last night by taxi and got a lift home with another parent who car told me it was 31.5 degrees outside at 6.30 p.m. So much for Autumn!
The children and I went to the ‘English’ church in Oshakati. Some of you may remember our role in it last year. Anyway, I was delighted to be one of about 22 people. The majority are Zimbabwean Christians, working over here, who can’t speak Oshiwambo. (one is the daughter-in-law of the first briefly-president of Zim) Others are locals who enjoy English. The church meets in a conference room at a lodge and some of the staff come along too. The couple leading the fellowship are from the Cape; very caring people. Next time I go I may take a photo.
David has my camera now for Tsumkwe as it is his first time there, is miles from anywhere, is on the Botswana border and is deep in San territory (if one can say they have territory, being nomads). We hope to go with David on some of his jaunts but, as he is still establishing himself and the work, it is right for him to go on his own and concentrate on the work in hand while it is all so new.
Language
The other day we stopped to give someone a lift. As most people have no transport, they rely on being picked up by people passing that way. We did not have much room so David asked her ‘how many?’ (because, when you stop, ‘hordes’ suddenly emerge from the bush for the lift – I do exaggerate!) When she answered ‘$5’, we both laughed as we realised he had used the prefix on the word for ‘how many/much’ that is used for o-words (money = oilmaliwa), instead of the prefix for omu-words!
Talking of ‘hordes’, we had 22 at Bible club last Wednesday. I am having a bit of a break over the school hols but they will still be coming to play, no doubt. I showed them ‘The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe’ last week as it was exam week. Our lounge was very crowed but I enjoyed watching the children enjoying the movie.
That's all for today, folks!