What to do with a plastic bag and a few recent photos

Pretty Flower - anyone know what it is?

Trying to keep up with pop culture! R100 for 2 tickets and snack pack (~$10)

Rearranged our house and made the "wall of love" with all of the cards and photos from friends and family, whenever people visit they say how awesome it is! (Note the Patagonia dress...)

January Market Day

10 things to do with plastic grocery bags:


1. Crochet them into bags, mats, hats, shoes...

2. Tie them together to make a jump rope

3. Put one on your head to protect against the rain

4. Wear them around your ankles in the snow as gaiters

5. Use them to tie the tent walls together by threading them through the grommets

6. Tape one over a broken window pane

7. Make a kite

8. Poke holes in it and put your washed greens in, then go outside and spin around = salad spinner (this also works as a hot day "sprinkler" with kids and a bag of soaked sponges)

9. Pack a bunch together into another plastic bag to make a soccer ball

10. Don't throw them on the ground or feed them to goats




Dear Friends and Loved Ones,

Here's a quick make-up post that I tried to post on February 2nd but the power went out before I could get it up - enjoy!

We've been pretty busy lately - as usual I suppose. We've been hearing a lot about cold and snow "up there" and some jealousy over our warm summer weather... the weather has been good, but this year there has been quite a bit of rain recently. We got drenched walking home on Thursday afternoon - fortunately all of our important things were inside a plastic bag to protect them from the rain! My yoga classes last week and likely today have been canceled due to rain (not because we do it outside but walking to and from the classes - also, the roof leaks). Yesterday morning was hot and sunny, in the afternoon we got a huge thunder and lightening storm and now today is gray and drizzly, we prefer it to below zero - but we also know that you guys likely have pretty excellent climate control...

We've had other PCVs come and visit us this week, from last Wednesday until today (they come into town to collect paychecks and do their PC reports with electricity and visit us at the same time) so that has been pretty fun to be social and hear how they are getting along. We met one of the new teachers finally who arrived in December - he's from Idaho so that was kind of fun. We've also been enjoying Sunday "elevenses" with the Wales volunteers, last week we had doughnuts and yesterday cranberry-almond biscotti and it is quite fun to visit with them as well.

We both have been working hard to continue to nudge our projects forward, Shane might actually have mats to do Jiu Jit Su on by the time we get back from our vacation! I had a chance to help out my friend last week in the bakery. One of the employees just had a cute little baby girl and is now out on maternity leave, leaving Matumelo, her daughter and another young woman. Last week was the first week of high school, unfortunately the school fees for her daughter who was due to start at one of the better high schools in the country, didn't get paid on time, so they both went to the district where the high school is to talk to the principal and wait (for another kid to have to drop out) so that Matumelo's super-bright daughter could get a spot. This just left one person able to work at the bakery, Matumelo didn't trust hiring someone temporarily because they might steal her money or her recipes... so I filled in for a couple of days. It was quite different than my normal Peace Corps work, but very similar to jobs I've done in the U.S. and it was fun to chat with customers and the gal that I was working with, along with giving me more insight into the business - and happily Matumelo's daughter got into the good high shcool! Otherwise, Shane is still primarily reading the Chemistry 101 textbook, I am reading "I Heard the Owl Call My Name" and I just finished "Conflict 101." Both good in different ways.

I think that pretty much wraps up out latest news - we'll check back in with you all after our vacation!

Hugs from Peace Corps!

Carol and Shane