Things he says

One day we were outside with our neighbor checking our mails. The neighbor was talking to our son about the mail man and how he brings the mail to our mail box. She then asked our son if he wants to be the mail man one day when he grows up. He said "I already know what i want to do when I grow up, I don't want to be a mail man. I want to be a bus driver". I said "Wow, that cool". That was the first time I was hearing that. My neighbor said, "that's nice, you can sing the song "the wheels on the bus" to the kids in your bus, while driving." He replied "I 'm not going to drive a school bus, I'm going to driver a big bus, the bus that takes people from one country to another."

Today, when we were driving from the library, we were listening to a song by my favorite Namibian Artist Ras Sheehama. The song talked about Africa and it mentioned the Serengeti. I asked him if he knew what that was. He said, "No." I told him that it was a very big national park in Tanzania, a country in Africa and it's like Etosha National Park in Namibia, with a lot of wildlife. I then said,"Tate lived in Tanzania once and maybe one day, when you are a little older, we can visit there and see the animals and Mt. Kilimanjaro. He said, "I don't think I will be able to go, since i will be a grown up, I'll be driving my bus then. And since there is water, I won't be able to drive to Africa with you guys." You can just go, unless my sister wants to be a boat driver and then maybe she can drive us there with her boat."

Some Photos

playing with his blocks

He enjoys playing with his blocks these days.

She's crying because she wants the camera
Scraffy from school visited our house. P drew him a picture of his new home. He brought fun to our house and some screaming too, they all wanted to play with him at the same time.

Food Inc.

You have to see this movie, Food Inc. if you haven't yet, everybody should. It makes you want to turn vegetarian though, if you aren't yet.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5eKYyD14d_0

Back to normal life

We are back to our normal life again. We finally got into the system. It was hard being back here after our weeks in Africa. I didn’t know it will take a while to adjust back to our normal life here, but it did. It was especially hard for me, I think for the kids too. We really enjoyed having company and having many relatives around, other kids to play with, siblings and cousins to talk with. It was also nice to be outside all the time and having great weather and to not worry about small things that don't really matter.. It was hard, but we have adjusted again. I’m enjoying my friends here again and the kids are enjoying their friends too.
Today, I spent a day with African friends and it was beautiful, just like always, when we are together. The secret word is community, there is nothing more important than having a community, especially to an African like me. We talked about Africa, ate African food, I learned how to cook chicken with peanuts and we did each other’s hair. I wish we do this more often. We need to get the kids together more often.
Kids having fun at the children's museum

K pointing at the camera

A New year and a new list of things to do

Let's me start by revisting things that I wanted to do last year

1) Read, I want to finish at least 6 books this year. Accomplished
2) Exercise regularly and continues to eat healthy and minimize junk food intake. YES, but need to do more
3) Learn a new skill or take a class to enhance me, I would like to do any of these three, 1) learn to knit 2) take a photography class or 3) a piano class again. Not Done
4) Write, I’m going to try to write at least 30 pages this year of my book. Done, but not Accomplised
5) Travel, Take my family to Africa - Accomplished

Things I want to do this year!
1) Read and Read - finish at least 12 books
2) Write and write more - be more creative, write short stories, write poems, just write
3) Do more of the things I enjoy, like more time with family, time with friends, watch educational documentaries, movies, gardening, traveling, blogging, etc
4) Exercise regularly - get fit, run in the morning, swim, run a 5k again
5) Eat healthy - eat more organic, more vegetables, cook more at home -practice being a vegetarian for a week
6) Get a plot at the community gardens - grow organic vegetables, spend more time gardening, help my kids learn to garden
7) Spend more time in the nature - go hiking, canoeing, camping
8) Spend less on things that I don't really need and use what I have- practice 3 months of not buying any of these; clothes, shoes, sheets, toys, etc and use that money to help a "women empowerment project" in Africa
9) Figure out what I want to do when I grow up
10) Take some enrichment classes; classes on writing, parenting, child development, etc.
11) Have a date once a week with my husband
12) Volunteer

Namibia holiday - a trip to the village

We left the city after staying there for about 5 days or so. Windhoek is nice, but very expensive. The drive from the capital city to my village is 8 hours long. It's a very long drive. We usually do it early in the morning, we start the journey at about 5 am and then we get to the village while the sun is still up and not dark, but this time we had to pick up my mother-in-law from the airport, so we started the journey late. It was long, even though we didn't stop much, we still couldn't get there before the sun went down. It's not really safe to drive at night, because of the wildlife and livestock closing the road at night and it's hard to see them.
It was very exciting to arrive in the village. Things are the same, the trees and the houses are were they have been, a few changes here and there but not that much. The people have changed a lot though, especially the young ones, they all look so older, but still somebody who you might think is 10 years old there is usually 15 years old. We tried to guess the kids age and we were always wrong, they are usually older than they look. Kids there seemed so mature for their age and well behaved compared to the children here. I love my village and I felt home instantly when I got there. I love the environment, very relaxing. It's nice that C likes it too. He rather be in the village than in the city, it's just very relax, everything is slow paced. We are often outside, in the company of each other, talking and watching the kids play, we can see the livestock grazing in the field, I don't have to worry about being late for an appointment or missing a TV show or the updates on facebook. It was really relaxing having to not to worry about the stress that technologies brings. I couldn't watch TV, listen to the radio, connect to the Internet and I hardly used the Internet the whole time I was in Africa and I loved the feeling. My mind seemed so refreshed. I even told C once that we should try to live there for a few years. He asked what will he be doing there, I said we can just teach school at the elementary school in the village. He didn't really like the idea very much. He had done that already though, that's how we actually met, He was a volunteer teacher there. I won't mind doing though. The things i enjoyed the most is having a refreshed relaxed mind, which I guess comes from not having to worry about so many unnecessary things, like a dirty house, undone laundry, late for an appointment, and all that stress, that comes with life here in the city. I loved having company and being surrounded by people I love and care about. I loved the African sun and the warmth it brings. I enjoyed eating the food I grew up eating. It was really nice overall just being there. The kids had fun too. They got sick, while we were in the village but i think, it's kind of expected, it's big change, for them, new food, new weather, new environment, everything is new. During the day, they are usually fine and happy to play with other kids, but at night they had some fever. They also had some diarrhea, but they eventually got better.
They enjoyed learning about their new world; the bugs, which one bites and which one doesn't, the language, especially from playing with other kids, it's amazing how much they can pick up. They enjoyed the animals too. We baptize our daugther there, at the church I was baptized and grew up in and we had a party to celebrate and that went well. It was lots of fun. We also celebrated Christmas there.
After about 10 days there, we left the village to a small town called Grootfontein. It's about about 6 hours drive from my village. We went to hang out at another farm there. It's a commercial farm similar to a ranch here in the US. My mother-in-law and sister were taking a tour to learn about the San people and their culture, the tour was near the area. So my family and I, plus my brother decided to wait for them at his dad's farm. It was relaxing as the village, except it was much cooler, it rained a lot there. It was also very quiet there. One day, we took a day trip to visit Etosha National Park, one of the biggest wildlife park in Namibia.

After church with my kids, brother, sister and cousin

Buying some fire wood

Drivng to Onesi to visit C's Namibian family (he stayed with the when he was a volunteer)

Playing with cars in a "giant sandbox", that's what P likes to say.

NAMIBIA

Namibia is definitely one of the most beautiful countries in the world. I know I’m a little bit biased but seriously, Namibia is very beautiful. I like the way that it’s very diverse, people wise and nature too. When I was in Windhoek I felt like I can be somewhere in Europe or here in the US. and when I went to the northern part of the country, is there that I start to feel my really Africa and being home, which makes sense; that’s where I grew up. We stayed in Windhoek for about 4 days with my mom, aunt, cousins, brother, sister. It was already a holiday there, so everybody was on a break. We hang out with family and some friends everyday and ate Namibian food. The kids played with my aunt’s neighbor kids, even though they couldn’t understand each other, since they spoke only Afrikaans and my kids spoke English, they still had fun together. Windhoek is still very clean and well organized. There is a few new building here and there, but most things are the same. It felt so good to be in an environment were I could understand the culture, language and the way things are done. It really made me happy and I felt like I was finally home. I loved the strong African sun. I couldn’t get enough of it the first few days. I enjoyed having company. The kids did to, even though at first they didn’t really want to go to anybody, especially our girl, they still had fun being around people and really enjoyed playing with other kids. One of the neighbor kid had a puppy, my kids loved that so much, for a few days that was their favorite toy. They loved to play with the puppy and hold it. After a few days in Windhoek, the whole family packed up and we drove 8 hours to the village. That day, we picked up my mother-in-law from the airport early in the morning and start driving to the most northern part of the country. The kids were so excited to see grandma and that made the trip exciting and smoother, to be able to interact with grandma
My brother and the kids. I like the way that he is sometimes very sweet and kind.

My brother translating and making sure everyone is happy.

Playing with another new puppy, my mom is behind with a smile and a black shirt.