Guavas, Geckos and Going Places

It is now half term for Naomi which is really good – she will hopefully be able to get a mix of rest, exploration, and preparation of work to get ahead for the coming term. It has been a mixed half term and I think everyone at the school is looking forward to a break and to recharge their batteries. We were thinking of a trip (dependant on costs) to Rubondo Island National Park (Official Link here) which is home to many birds, crocodiles, and the elusive Sitatunga antelope, but unfortunately it’s a little too much this time – so will hope to get away somewhere else for a bit of a change from the city.

Guava Tree Bark

Back in Mwanza, it is coming into Guava season – never had one before so looking forward to them ripening, but for the moment I am really fascinated by the colouration and texture of the bark on the guava tree trunk – it is a really great mix that I’m sure would make a nice designer dress.

Following the passing of Roxy 2 weeks ago today, our other compound dog; Ed has been a little down and lonely. He did enjoy a visit from the headmaster’s dog, Tusca for an afternoon but in addition to this I’ve also been trying to comfort him through trying to be a good friend – a few extra bits of chicken/other meat here and there and also by mirroring his actions for example the picture below. I think it is helping him along but any other advice on how to boost dog morale would be appreciated.

Me & Ed Mirror

In other news, while downloading Scribus to do some design work this week, our internet managed to max out at 390 kB/second (low speed was 350 kB/sec)! Quite an achievement for our Vodacom dongle on the Bomba 30 tariff, especially when I hear stories of people using it and not being able to even load their emails…and equally impressive ‘because we’re in Africa’! It does worry me that we have worse times to come, although this download speed was even achieved when using the dongle in the later part of the month at ‘low speed’ after we had used our first 2GB download at ‘high speed’! Hope it continues to work as at the moment it is a really good deal!

Finally for those of you not on Facebook, this week we welcomed a new addition to our flat – a baby Gecko. Early this week, we discovered 2 eggs in the keep (the bit where the latch fits into the frame) of our back door. Midweek, our houseworker had somehow managed to get them out and put them on the worktop. Being biologists we put them back where we found them and 2 days later we had one of them hatch. The young man/woman has now moved on from place of birth to go and eat some ants for us. Good luck to him we say!

Gecko Eggs

Hatched Gecko