1st June 2010 – Is it June already ??

Another month has passed and I guess I was a bit busy since the time went SO quickly. I don’t know where the weeks and months go. For lots of youngsters in the U.S. this time of year means the end of school and a chance to enjoy good weather and the fun of summer. I hope some of you can appreciate the mosquitoes that come with the warm weather better than I. And do you know that they like to look at themselves in mirrors? Every morning I can kill (pacifist that I am) at least a couple who are sitting on the mirror in the bathroom. They also like to sit on bed nets, but at least they’re visible there and as long as they stay on the outside then they don’t disturb my sleep. I continue to wonder what purpose these creatures have on our earth…..

We see a lot of baobab fruit this time of the year. I don’t know about you but I didn’t know that baobab trees produce and edible fruit until I lived in this central part of the country where there are so many of these trees. Their fruit/seeds are in pods, some of the pods being quite large (5 – 6 inches long and a couple inches in diameter), and the seeds are small but covered with a sweet cottony something that kids love to suck on. I’ve also heard that these seeds are sometimes soaked in water and that water given to children to stop diarrhea. Collecting these seeds is a business for some, and many people use food coloring to dye them, package them, and then they’re sold in the market, on street corners and everywhere people are passing.

Coming home from work today I was reminded again about how, although we live in the capital city, our area is still very much village. I was behind a herd of cows and goats, and had to wait until they decided to get out of the way. And we hear roosters every morning (early, at a couple different times), and guinea fowls, dogs, cats, cows, goats all during the day and into the night. And this morning during my walk I was out of houses before I had gone 20 minutes, and it was just like being in the wilderness except for the things I could see in the distance. I came across a couple magnificent baobab trees during this walk, and so that reminded me to write about them. Maybe I can put a picture on the page as well, one taken of a beautiful big baobab near St. Gaspar’s Conference Centre.