another week already?

well, as one more week passes, so does the time since my last post. I suppose i should resign myself to this duty of privileging you; my snow and frigid temperature bound friends to these wondrous and well written tales of Africa. When I think of all you home-grown Albertans wandering around in your parkas and snowshoes making the big bucks in our ever bustling economy, it warms my heart to step out onto my sunset-facing, riverview, warm african patio* in my shorts, sandals, and t-shirt to take in the last rays of sushine as the spherical radiating orb makes its near-equatorial descent so much closer to my latitude than to yours. *sigh* If only you were here then you could experience it for yourself. But wait my friends, don't delete the bookmark to this blog just yet, perhaps I still have some encouraging and interesting information for you that is less likely to make you want to spit icicles on your computer screen than these previous lines.**
Where should I begin.. in breaking with tradition, I shall start with the beginning of the week.***
Monday - rain all day, very miserable, I worked mostly inside but I had to walk around often to fetch various tools that my zambian friends and I needed to work on grouting the tiling work that we had done in previous weeks.
Tuesday - still raining. We move to tiling the bathroom. Rate of progress has increased significantly since our first attempt, which is an encouragement to all.
Wednesday - little rain, but i am eager to return to finishing the foundation of the duplex. Gordon is gone to Lusaka, and His #2 Justin thinks it is too wet to continue with cement work. we finish tiling the bathroom, and lower the toilet which has inexplicable initially been installed 3 inches too high and on a small mound of concrete (very ugly). We finish, except for the grout-work - as we have run out of grout - and are pleased with the esthetic improvement of tiling over the concrete floor with raised toilet.
Thursday - First dry morning in a while and Justin is willing to let us start foundation work again. the bricklayers work on that, under my distant supervision, as i make futher tractor trips to fetch sand before the location becomes unaccessible.
Friday - Another dry morning so we continue with the foundation and sand work. A non-marrieds movie-night (even missionaries can party down) and we watch Sahara on the projector while drinking A&W rootbeer and munching popcorn.
Saturday - Halfday. Still no rain and we almost finish the foundation along with a few trips of sand. on monday we will be ready to begin backfill and then onto pouring the floor! Movie-night is continued as we watch the shocking surprise conclusion of Sahara: Matthew McConaughey against all odds saves the world from nuclear waste-poisoned water and ends up with the girl (elegantly played by our favorite female actress with a heavy spanish accent - Salma Hayek)
Sunday - Communion service at the assembly with the usual non-english hymns and usual non-english sermon. Actually, this sunnday the speaker threw in just enough occasional english phrases to keep me from reading an entirely different section of the bible from the one being preached on.**** As usual a delicious lunch followed, and I went for a run this afternoon and played a little soccer with some kids*****, followed by a dip in the pool. Bible study was tonight and we had a lovely message on not being frustrated when building goes very slowly, because God has it in his hands - from the book of zeccariah on the subject of zerubabel.

*Actually, I don't have a sunset-facing, riverview patio, but my neighbours do, and I'm sure they'd let me use it any time they wanted. In actuality, I have a sunset-facing, riverview gazebo, but for the purposes of illustration I thought that a patio would be better.
**I would like to apologize if i have offended anyone with the juxtaposition of your snowed-in, edmontonian, wind-chilling, hell-frozen-over type conditions with my idylic african setting.
***if this is becoming confusing for you, remember, you can just read from the outside in.
****I find the book of Proverbs always suffices for a practical and spiritual alternative to suffering through whatever unintelligible ramblings a preacher may be bring forth.
*****an added note, on most late afternoons i have been running into town, meeting the natives, playing soccer, and otherwise making the most of my rural Zambian experience. Also, after the zambian workers knock-off at their usual time of 2:30 I have been designing and starting to build trusses. if anyone could send me a quick 5000 or so nails for gussets, it would be much appreciated.******
******Just send package to Chitoloki, Zambia, Africa
*******this isn't a reference to anything written in this post, but i just wanted to add that I really want to keep this comments competition going. Few of you may realize, but I actually enjoy competition for its own sake, and don't really care as much about winning as you might think. therefore, I'm encouraging you all to post at least 2 times on Gill and Krista's posts for every one comment on mine.********
********I'm secretly betting all my money on them to win, through a distant cousin of mine, and that way when they come out ahead, we all win! so long, and thanks for all the fish!
Peter out.