I don't want to be a lawn mower when I grow up!

One of Malcolm’s least favourite jobs in England is cutting the lawn. Its not that its difficult, especially with a hover mower – its just so tedious and when you think you've finished the grass just keeps growing again.



Here, the same problem is that the grass seems to grow very fast – but there are no hover mowers. This week a couple of men came with long machetes and spent several hours cutting (harvesting) the grass outside our house with too and fro sweeps of their knives – and by the end it was probably better than Malcolm would have done with a mower.

There was a lot of activity at our house this week The mason arrived and installed a new steel door and window and built a wall, so what used to be an outside porch, with 3 doors to lock, is now a corridor with just one door to lock. The door is not very pretty, but hopefully it will be very secure and should look better painted.



We also had some unwelcome visitors. On a couple of evenings, when it was raining, the flying ants decided to swarm, and thought the best place would be our lounge. And these are not wimpy, European flying ants. These are mighty, African ants with wingspan of about 6 cm – which can be quite daunting when a dozen or so are flying around your head. By the morning all the wings had fallen off and the ants had disappeared, meaning we had a floor carpeted with discarded wings. Fortunately a small lizard also visited, maybe with the intention of helping to clear up the ants.


For the past 2 weeks the Diocese has had a team of visitors from Switzerland, England and Zambia. Most were here to run two 4 day ‘train the trainers‘ discipleship courses ‘Rooted in Jesus’. (www.alisonmorgan.co.uk)One of them, Sarah came to help at Potter’s Village. As well has making musical instruments and posters she spent time teaching the carer’s how to play. There is not a culture of games here and it was a shock to her to realise that even adults were struggling to do a jigsaw puzzle designed for a toddler (e.g. trying to force the large pieces together without looking at the picture) or to blow soap bubbles.

Irene gave her second lesson on running a business this week – and even more students, about 36 out of a college of 38, turned up. On Thursday she was invited to have tea with the Bishop’s wife and the coordinator of the Mother’s Union. Whilst there they explained the work of the MU and suggested Irene goes with them sometime to visit one of the outlying parishes and maybe teach some of the young mothers basic sewing skills.

We are not sure what happens next week. Malcolm wants to sort out some of the lights in the house and we will need to clear up when the building work is finished.


This weeks sign is from a Secretarial services shop n Kisoro.