Star-lings

This week was amazing - birdwise. I spotted a violet backed starling, so beautiful it should be synthetic and unnatural. I mean the colors are so perfectly glossy they should have been mixed in a lab somewhere.

I keep hearing what I think are lapwings by the rocks that form the edge of the lake, am not sure though for even though its common to find lapwings by water, I think this body of water is a bit too deep for them, having said that I haven't seen anything so will file this one under "unknown" for a while.

Oh and weaver nests! I saw dozens of them on my way to the baobab, they were hidden in the reeds hanging over water, above them were skeleton leafless branches holding up 3 or 4 cormorants and a darter. They were keenly eyeing the fishermen who were casting nests nearby. I doubt they have the dexterity and determination of the eagles though (they hang around fishermen so they can steal their catch.)

One of my favorite things to do at night (since I long gave up tv) is to look at the stars. On a slow day I only get to see 1 or 2 shooting stars and I always see Scorpion, Venus the planet, sometimes I see Orion and the Southern Cross as well. Unknowingly (since I don't know how to plot them yet) I also see Taurus, Aquarius and virgo. You don't notice time when you are star gazing and the coolest thing is the sky is ever moving, sometimes you notice a star that is moving unnaturally fast and in a seemingly wrong direction, that's a satelite. A friend of mine brought her iphone which had a stars app. we had some good fun plotting and identifying constellations with it. If I get an iphone I definitely want that app. What you do is you just point to the heavens or even the ground and it will identify the stars, planets and constellations that are on the spot you are pointing at, magnifying everything like a huge telescope. What it also does is reveal the shooting stars you can't see with your naked eye..its quite something seeing hundreds of stars shooting down at the same time.

Nkwichi Staff-hard at work!

Oscar was wondering if we actually get any work done here on squeaky sand land so I thought I would share a few candid pics of our hardworking staff!

Here are Maaike and Joseph planning their next village visit!



Or could they be smiling about how the current football tournament scores?? You decide:



And Odin doing accounts (he always has this face when he is doing our barbills)


Vincent prepping for dinner




and this is our volunteer Kristina



Her main jobs are:

entertaining us at meal times
uploading music onto ipods
giving pedicures
updating our facebook statuses
helping Vincent carry firewood

all this she does when she has returned from digging at the farm and overseeing various craft projects in the villages! We love volunteers!

I would love to have uploaded a photo of me hard at work, but I am never able to use hard and work in the same sentence! I can usually be found sitting behind my computer working on my blog or emailing strangers who I will soon meet and become friends with or on the beach having sundowners and being very opinionated about life and what it's all about or entertaining guests with anecdotes of life in China. I can hardly call that work!

Take last week for example which was a blast! I hung out with my 2 new best friends Lily and George. We walked to the Baobab tree and took turns spotting birds. Then we timed ourselves racing around the baobab tree, Odin was there too but his time was not the best. That night we played "duck duck goose" on the beach which was hilarious because Jaime (our Portuguese waiter) kept translating everything into portuguese so "duck duck goose" became "ganso do pato do pato." Jaime is so strong and fast he won every time. Then the next day we were all swimming and playing "shark" which should have been "croc" that was fun and refreshing too for the water felt soo cool and refreshing against the hot sun. When lily left she gave me this picture of a...



I am hoping its a puppy and not in fact a likeness of me! We miss you Lily and George! Thanks for making us enjoy playing like kids again!