Oh, it's so nice to have my wonderful housekeeper back!! She's so great, and is becoming such a good friend! We all just love her! Today, I showed her how I make bread and cinnamon rolls in the breadmaker--she was awed by that! Then I showed her how I grind REAL wheat (she had never ever seen actual wheat before!!!!) in my wheat grinder, and she thought that was so cool! We had so much fun in the kitchen today! :) I made the cinnamon rolls for the playgroup today, as I was the hostess (with the mostess, right?), and I made bread and ground wheat just to show her how much fun it was. Then I gave her the loaf of bread and the flour. Sometimes I just feel so overwhelmingly grateful to her for all her hard work and help that I just want to keep bumping up her salary. Well, I can't really do that...that wouldn't be fair to her since it would make it harder for her when we leave, BUT I CAN do extra things for her! Like give her a 'superfluous' loaf of bread when I make it; a little flour when I grind it (it's SO expensive here, and they do NOT have whole wheat, even if they claim they do!!! The stuff they call whole wheat here is NASTY!!!!); some of the fresh produce from the garden... I picked an entire grocery bag full of green beans from our garden today. When are we going to eat that much??? Since we can continue to grow it all year round, there's really no need to freeze it or stock up on it, so it makes me feel happy to share! :) So, Pascaline went home today with half a grocery back of green beans, and loaf of fresh homemade breadmaker bread, and a gallon ziplock bag half full of freshly ground wheat. When I was piling up her goods on the counter for her to take with her, I thought she was going to cry! Good grief! It's not half of what I would like to give her! And how can I in any good conscience NOT share when we have SO MUCH and she gives me so much help and peace of mind??? Because of her, I'm much less frazzled all the time. I can pay more attention to the kids and play with them instead of frantically trying to clean up the bathroom, or all the dishes I made from a big lunch...I can play peacefully instead of absentmindedly driving a car around a track with Andrew while thinking of all the other things I should be doing and I'm not, and thinking how much more work it will be later and how tired I am...I know everyone can relate. I'm able to go to French class with Devin a couple of days a week for an hour, and I know that she's here playing with the kids so they're not just vegging away while I'm gone. I'm very grateful for this opportunity to have help--even if it's just for a short while. It is such a blessing.
On to another thought: Our car is HERE!!!! All we have to do is pay for our Yaounde insurance and we can pick it up! Weird!!! Now I'm going to have to drive places!! Doh! But, I admit, it will be nice not to have to rely on the drivers, or on my neighbors who are leaving on Sunday (SAD!). I can just think, "Hmmm...I need some butter (which I really do). I think I'll go to Pavillon Vert and pick some up! Then maybe I'll go to the Euro Marche and get some ground beef, a chicken, and perhaps a nice freshly made Italian Calzone!" (drool) So, that will be nice.
We've had some amazing rain storms, and I'm looking forward to more. I LOVE IT!!! :)
I thought I might add some photos, since it's been awhile, so enjoy!! (Still no pictures up yet, so I'll get those 'before and after' shots in here eventually...)
Here we have a view of part of the back of the house. You can see Josh and Claire's window/door/balcony to their room on the top, and below them is the kitchen balcony thingy...and some interesting purple bushes:
Here is a nice view of the front of the house:
Two views of our backyard garden! Mmmm...Veggies... In one picture, you can see our banana trees--and the two GIANT bunches of bananas that will be ready to cut down soon!!! (I'm super excited about the avocado tree in our front yard that should all be ripe within the next week or so!!!!!!!!!! Here, though, they call avocados 'pears' because in French, the word for avocado is 'avocat', but that's also the word for 'lawyer', and since there are lots of lawyers here, and no 'real' pears, they chose to call avocados 'pears' instead of 'lawyers'. Makes sense to me.)
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