There is an old garden right in front
of my veranda that still has sweet potatoes growing. Some of my
cargo of carrots from the mainland didn't survive the journey, so I
put them in the garden to make compost. A couple of the workmen came
and started weeding my garden this morning. I'm not sure if it's
their garden, or they saw my poor rotting carrots, thought “that's
not how you grow carrots! This woman sure needs some help with her
gardening!”
My new students came to help me
decorate the schoolroom today. We have one room for “serious work”
and a second room with two sofas that we have called “the library”.
Yesterday I collected a couple of
coconuts from underneath a tree in the garden, but realized there was
no way I could open them! I had to ask one of the workmen to get the
thick, stringy husk off the nut. In the garden, there is a lean-to
with a fire pit where some of the workmen sleep. I took the kids to
translate into Pigin for me and one of them happily produced an
enormous spike especially designed for the job. Now I just have to
work out how to open the nut, how to grate the flesh, how to turn it
into coconut milk and then simply add it to the curry I'm planning to
make tonight. No problem! Or I could have bought coconut power from
the shop in town. Maybe I'll learn my lesson next time.
The kids speak a strange mixture of
English, German and Pigin. Since I understand two out of three, I
can usually make out what they are saying. They know we only speak
English in the schoolroom though. Part of the reason I'm here is to
improve the children's English so they will be ready for boarding
school and (hopefully) University in Australia.
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