Copy that!

When I am not in the ESL or Learning Support rooms or a classroom, I take up residence in the science faculty room for internet access. This room also houses the school's SOLE color printer. Can you see where this is going? While the school has a few other black and white printers around campus, the schmancy color printer is the one of choice. It is amazing to see what comes through here. The room is quite hub of activity as teachers come to pick up their printing, which can be quite superfluous. While this is neither exclusively an African OR a teacher trait, it absolutely blows my mind as to what people choose to print. The kicker today - someone printed off 25 pages of a color catalog from the internet. Sizse, the technology guru here, patiently changes tonor about every other week and paper needs to be replaced about every other hour.

Some of you will remember the dog woes Russ and I have talked about. Our neighbor Lawrence had a dog who was constantly barking, especially when we went out in our backyard. Actually, he would always say that the dog belonged to his wife and not him, but fact of the matter is there was still a dog in his flat (I say his because since he is the teacher, the flat has been allocated to him). Anyway, the dog has now gone back to the Humane Society and we have a quieter neighborhood.

Looking for a sizable watermelon to take to the Thanksgiving dinner and pool party we have been invited to tomorrow by an American couple. While we have been promised turkey and pumpkin pie, it is too hot to have all the traditional dishes that I will try to recreate on Friday night for our friends who have never experienced a Thanksgiving dinner.

I forgot to mention that we went back to Sanitas this past weekend. Sanitas has the lovely cafe in the middle of their garden nursery that we discovered the previous weekend. We spent a few hours there as Russ corrected papers and I read a book while we also just talked. Finally found a proper cup of tea with warm milk and a real scone with clotted cream, so I was quite pleased with the whole afternoon. On Sunday afternoon, we went for drinks at the restaurant at the Mokolodi Game Reserve and that was an equally pleasant experience. These are welcome breaks for us both as Russ and I can unwind and talk about so many different things. The rest of the weekend was spent visiting friends and going for walks in the camel thorn tree forest close to our house. We usually run into cattle on these walks but our presence does not seem to bother them. It has been fascinating to watch the progression of new growth. Flowers, groundcover, and leaves are sprouting all over the place.