spending my time

I have spent the time since Sam left for Angola in Windhoek with his family. It’s been a really laid-back time; quiet and fairly uneventful especially during the week when everyone is busy with school or work. The weekend was a bit livelier, with Ito home from the Cheetah farm and all the kids around the house. On Saturday I got together with Jennie at Hein and Nadine’s house and we watched the Tri-Nations (rugby) – South Africa vs. New Zealand. SA won it by quite a lot, but it was due mostly to free kicks – they made only 2 actual tries. So it wasn’t a particularly exciting game. I headed home around dusk and watched a movie with all the kids before dinner.
Sunday was church again and a late family lunch. In the evening a few of us went to Pick N’ Pay to get a few ingredients we needed to make a cheesecake (which the kids had never heard of, and was suggested by Ito). I showed Maezinha how to make the cake as we prepared it together. A few hours later I was given the job of cutting and serving and everyone seemed quite pleased with the result.
Monday night there was a lot of studying going on since its exam time. There was a question about some English tenses and it came out that I’m an English teacher. That was it. For the next two hours I tutored Paiza and Flavio on everything from Past Perfect Continuous tense to articles, to Proper Nouns. They laughed and called it “NamEnglish” when they asked me if it was correct grammar to say, “My head is paining”, and I had to say no, but that it should be, “My head hurts” because pain is a noun, but hurt is a verb. I heard Flavio explaining it to someone else the next day, so I guess he learned pretty well. He said he thought the exam went well and he told me that when he needed to use a proper noun to replace “she” on the exam, he had used “Amanda”. Ha.
I’ve heard from Sam intermittently via sms and email. Yesterday he assisted in several procedures including (for all your medical types that know what that means). He says the days are long but really interesting and a lot of fun. I think it was a good decision to go do his practical work there. Already he has done more than his entire time at the hospital at his school last summer, where they had him pushing patients in wheelchairs from one place to another. The money spent on this trip is well worth it, and I trust God will continue to provide for us as He always has, when it comes time to pay tuition again.
Tomorrow I head to Okahandja again for some much anticipated time with Maveja and time spent enjoying the familiarity of a place I once called home.