Four hours later….

Chillin on a Monday morning

Don’t believe MKs when they tell you how difficult it is growing up on the mission field! We are enjoying a nearly perfect weather day today so I got an early start in the fields and school and returned for breakfast to find Hudson relaxing in the morning breeze. We are gearing up for a very busy few weeks with our first attempt at parent/teacher conferences, tending the new harvest at the school gardens, new construction and preparing for two groups of visitors. It’s all good stuff but will keep us very busy!

More about the boys!

About the time I finished my last post, we had a couple more updates on the boys. Pictures say so much more than words, so I’ll let them speak for themselves, but here are some shots of the boys playing as they do most days – and ending up looking like they do by the end of most days. In so many ways, we feel like we have stepped back a few generations from what we know of modern Western culture. One of them that we appreciate is the freedom our kids have to explore freely throughout the great outdoors and enjoy unstructured (and apparently unsupervised) play without the distractions of busy American life.

Rowan also lost his first tooth this week! He actually knocked it loose playing soccer with his friends at school and we monitored it all day, including a few failed attempts to extract it. We enjoyed a wonderful dinner that included sweet corn from the market and afterward discovered that it was missing! We’re assuming that it snuck down with the corn, but we have a request in with the tooth fairy to see if she would be willing to make her payment without proof. This isn’t the first lost tooth for the DeKams in Zambia as Clayton has lost 2 since arrival, but we are celebrating with Rowan’s first. He is very excited because African folklore has it that when a child loses a tooth he places it under a hollow gourd and in the morning finds a chicken! We’ll see…

Happenings

Since even before we left, the two most common areas of people’s interest were, not surprisingly, the weather and the kids.

The weather:

October was very hot (90s and even 100s) and November even hotter.  There were nights where we would sweat in our sleep!  By November the clouds and breezes became more frequent.  The skies would often hold promise of rain, but tease us by refusing to offer the relief it would bring.  We love being able to see as far as we can across the horizon – our Zambian version of Big Sky Country – but the difficulty is you can see multiple storms moving around in the distance and then wait without one coming your way to cool off.

Finally, we received our first few storms in late November and December.  Usually they would come hard and fast, cool things off, then move on and bring heavy, humid air in behind.  January saw a brief interlude, but we have since been in a more consistent season of rain.  Although we are told the rains were late this year, they have been heavy and we get some several times a week – usually during the night and in the morning. 

The weather is actually quite nice now for us Michiganders.  Sometimes, especially in the morning and evening, it feels a bit like Indian summer or fall here with the cooler temps and breezes.  Although I’m beginning to think that the seasons are really just hot and hotter and after that it gets hot before becoming hot again.  Things have greened up considerably and the landscape is quite lush now.  We have planted a nice little home garden and have begun planting our first crops to sustain the school itself (post coming soon to http://www.estherschool.org).

The boys:

The kids have been doing very well and we even dared to declare recently that they seem to have reached the point of “new normal” here in Zambia.  It is amazing how much they are learning, experiencing, and growing.  They definitely have figured out how to have fun around here and once again we have commented on what a blessing it has been to have both of our families living in community together here.  Here are a few recent updates on “the boys”

Clayton.  Clayton is enjoying homeschool and only complains that the work can’t keep up with him!  He can often be heard saying very normal 8 year-old boy things like: “Dad, you know what’s really fun to do with paper?  Cutting it up and separating the pieces into polygons and non-polygons.”  Or “Dad, what comes after quadrillion?  I’m making addition problems for myself and everything else is boring.”  His newest obsession is Calvin and Hobbes.  He spends a good portion of most days now reading and laughing to himself hysterically.

Clayton, Calvin, and Hobbes

While Clayton can be hard to keep up with intellectually, Rowan can’t be beat when it comes to heart and determination.  Ever our worker bee, he recently took to the crew of men who were making bricks for future buildings.  He is fascinated by the process and by their hard work.  More than once he snuck out of the house early in the morning to help them for awhile before we dragged him back and cleaned him up for school.  He always walks past them on the way to class a bit sheepishly, guilty about not being able to help.  While everyone else slept in on the first day of Christmas break, he snuck out again and began getting ready.  As I was sitting at the computer around 6am I heard him practicing to run with the big dogs.  He was walking back and forth saying “Ahwe!  Ahwe!” (Bemba for “no” – used often as a reprimand) in his most stern and serious voice.  I looked out the front door and saw this scene to match.

 

 

Then there’s Hootsie.  The first and only red-headed Zambian is talking every waking moment and developing quite a silly personality.  He can usually be found wandering around the house or outside “blowing things up” and displaying his self-proclaimed “mousie fingers” which is some otherwise unexplained phenomena of his imagination that involves touching everything and ignoring the rest of the known world.  He can also usually be found with his partner in crime, Will exploring or chasing something.

 

Hoots

Mousie Fingers

Although they have finally started expressing themselves about missing “home” (in their own way – i.e. Clayton through a theological discourse and Rowan by banging his head against things), we are all thankful for our simple existence here and for the opportunity to live carefree and reliant on God’s grace and provision.

New Esther School Video

Please check out the new video that our neice Lindsey made for the Esther School.  It is very powerful and gives some good glimpses at life around campus.  The kids in uniform are our students and most of the others are our neighbors who can usually be found hanging around our place!

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7SeQp3eeFE0