A magical weekend

What was best?  

15 new birds (sacred Ibis, eastern black capped oriole, Grey herons, white fronted bee eaters, African stone chat) hot showers (communal, open to the night air; 50 yards from (our own!) hut - they were just FINE); clean sheets; no roosters within 3k; a 5 mile walk this morning with KUF with coffee and biscuits in the middle at the exclusive old lodge on the hill watching brilliant yellow village weavers and canaries at the lodge's  "bird table". 2 hippos & a 14 ft croc.  Kuf now totally Continuously up on email on her new phone - data is slow and expensive. Maybe talk tonight to Kuf's Dad, learn about the 2nd family wedding.surprising to no one it will take a little longer to get Mark up on the 'net on the new phone. (We discovered in the spring that mastering the technology  without an ITdepartment is the hardest thing about the PC. )

  

Bought an electric razor and also a hair trimmer Saturday so this grizzled fuzziness is coming off as soon as I can get to the village barber. Shaving with a blade in buckets is too messy and H20 consumptive. 

Last night 2 dozen female PC trainees in a dorm, some trying to sleep at 9, some talking till 11. Some up before dawn at 6, others later. All a little bleary. M&k off at 7 to catch the early birds. 

  Such nice  messages from daughter     Martha and son-in-law Tyler and 2 touching emails from Returned Peace Corp Volunteer friends reliving their adventures through   our messages. That is a vivid time of intense memories. 

All SO nice. 

Now back to bucket baths and rushing around on the US-Swazi bureaucracy's crazed schedule. Only one more month of training - it's getting real.  This coming weekend we get "final" site assignments and the following week we go to our 2-year site for 3 days with our"site support agent" from the community.  back to our training village by public transport (khumbi') that Friday. 

Thanks for your great encouraging blog comments and emails. 

Monday supplement:  obviously didn't get this out. KUF got 2nd highest grade in the group: hi novice. Many tied with Mark for what must be the lowest grade: middle novice. Both of us up on email, new Nokia phone, and messaging, although its often out and downloads are expensive.  Couldn't get the barber lady to open her shop fore till Weds.