I'm switching to a different blog, go to http://africakidandtheworld.blogspot.com/ for my latest postings.

Since I live so close to Heidelberg, Germany (15 minutes away) , I decided to post a small portion of the Heidelberg catechism.  This thought gives me peace, in good times & in bad:

Q.  What is your only comfort in life and in death?

A.  That I am not my own, but belong--body and soul, in life and in death--to my faithful  saviour Jesus Christ.

AMEN!

German classes start next week.  I'm trying to go to a new level of communication,where I can talk to the strassen-bahn (streetcar) driver and actually be understood, even if I do continue to mangle grammar.  It will also be nice to hold a longer-than-three-word conversation with my favorite bakery lady and the ever-patient Volksbank teller.  So I have goals!

Danielle is jaunting all over Grenoble, taking classes at the university, eating dinner with her French host family occasionally, signing up for excursions to Nice and beyond, and generally enjoying her stay.  She misses our dog, and the rest of us to a lesser degree.

Things I loved about Burundi as a child:

--Chewing sugarcane for a midmorning snack

--The way rain beat tap-a-tap on our tin roof during rainy season

--Playing hopscotch in the schoolyard dirt with other little kids

--Swimming in the lake by Buja, hippos or no hippos

--Catching flying ants and taking them home to fry up

--Babies wrapped in cloth and tied on their momma's backs, lulled to sleep by the warmth and motion

--Climbing 20 feet up our eucalyptus tree

--Laughing at Sindamuzi, our cook, when he teased us