Saturdays are filled with the 30-minute-one-way grocery shopping walk, then laundry by hand facilitated by my sieve bucket system (see post on 2023.09.02), and more cleaning. Here are a couple pictures from my walk to the grocery store.
A serious army of ants on the march!
A flower growing garden on the side of the road and the kiosk for the best bakery in the area in the background
When I walk to the store, there is a demoralizing aspect of seeing a lot of plastic trash on the side of the road. I hope that Tanzania—which has banned plastic shopping bags in the entire country—would soon introduce a deposit requirement and recycling incentive on plastic bottles, which is the majority of the litter. On the walk back, I actually saw a ditch clean-up crew. I thanked them profusely!
Toward the end of the day, I received a text from Thomas, who teaches Hebrew and Old Testament at TUMA. He did his master’s degree at VID Specialized University, my PhD alma mater, and studied under my doctor father/research supervisor, Knut Holter, and Knut introduced us via email. Thomas and his son were in the area checking their corn fields in the area, and he said that he could stop by to greet me. So, I prepared some tea and brought out my shortbread cookies I bought for such visitors. I had a lovely visit and was able to meet his firstborn son, Alpha. Yes, the Alpha male, who loved the shortbread cookies.
In the evening, the power went out, so I jury rigged a rake with stuff I’ve found. It works fine for leaves, so it will suffice until I can find a better one to buy—as I haven’t seen one yet.
The broken broom and repurposed broom handle
A snail shell found with the test of the rake (with the lip balm for scale)
Mungu akubariki? (God bless you!)
Pretty good ad lib for a rake! Kudos, from a craft person!