Nature

We live in a fairly large compound, which had quite a lot of trees when we arrived, and has even more now. So we find we don't have to go far to see "wildlife", though it isn't quite the lions and elephants people immediately think of when you mention Africa. At the moment we have a lot of nests close to our house. Here's a dove sitting on her nest just under our roof. Doves make what seem to be quite scrappy nests, just enough twigs to stop the eggs from rolling away.



If you look carefully you should be able to see a slightly yellow coloured ball of grasses in this next photo. This is a red-cheeked cordon bleu (that's a bird!) nest just outside our bedroom window. It was lovely to watch the tiny birds arriving with individual sprigs of grass in their beaks.



And the architectural marvel of little weaver bird nests. If I were designing a nest, I would never think of putting the entrance hole at the bottom...!



This fellow amuses me. From the kitchen window, I can often see him sitting by an ants' nest, having an "eat all you can" buffet. What a life!



And this magnificent dragonfly was sitting on our washing line last week.

Kids

Besides school, our kids keep pretty busy...

Playing football or other games with friends:





Helping me bake (this was afterwards!):



And even at school they have to do sport:



And of course, there is always Lego:



(Rather dusty Lego, in our case!)

School ... and the years pass ...

Facebook recently reminded me of this photo, taken 7 years ago when Simon started school, and Marc began his homeschooling career!



Time has moved on and Marc's class has grown ...



... and so his workload has grown too. We are impressed by the French government's homeschooling curriculum, and all they provide us with, but it is very demanding. Marc does an amazing job, and our kids have always ended up with good results.

Please do pray that he will have the wisdom to organise the kids' timetables well, time himself to go through the lessons ahead of time, and pray too that our internet connection will work well enough for important tasks to be done online. And pray for good attitudes and a good atmosphere in the classroom!

Very rainy season

After a couple of very dry months in England, we got home to Pèdè to discover that here in the "dry North" it has been one of the wettest rainy seasons for years. People told us that it had been raining almost every day, and our first week back was exactly like that. It makes it hard to dry laundry, makes it impossible to get in and out of our compound some of the time, and fills up our septic tanks making it hard to drain the shower, but at least it keeps the temperatures down. And the farmers are happy about it ... in fact it's almost too much rain for them!

A lot of life here is determined by the rain. If it is raining hard then people don't come to work. If it is raining hard, there isn't much point going to the market (a few people will be there whatever the weather, but there won't be so much choice). Starting times for meetings will be suspended, and you never quite know when will be the point at which people will finally venture out, and there will be enough of them for it to be worth getting started. Not comfortable for our relatively time-respecting mentality (and a bit of a nightmare when you are trying to plan meals etc!).

It also means that everything is green, which makes a contrast from the yellow and brown scenes we were seeing before we left here in March. And the skies can be wonderful.

A few days in Cotonou

I was hoping to post this to my blog this evening, but the wifi isn't working - welcome back to Benin!

We flew into Cotonou at about 4am last Friday. Fortunately once we were in bed at the Guesthouse by ten to six, we did actually get two and a half hours sleep. Since then we have had time to catch up on it some more.

We have had to stay here for a few days to get the kids' visas done. Marc and I have 3-year residency cards, but the kids are on year-long visas. Other missionaries would have driven our car down for us, but with Marc's collar bone still not strong, he certainly can't drive, and I didn't fancy driving the seven hours from Cotonou to Parakou, especially since I will have to drive the three hours from Parakou to home. So we ordered a taxi for this Thursday (probably past by the time you read this!) and have had to do without a car in Cotonou. Our usual Cotonou taxi-man took us to Immigration and back for the visa business, and we tried out the new city taxis, but it's never as easy as having your own car!

Even so we managed to do essential shopping for school, plus some extra treats we can't buy further north, and we did manage a trip to the pool and a meal by the beach. But we'll all be glad to leave Cotonou - visas came through this morning, so we will be able to!



This is where we ate.



Simon put a newly-acquired skill into practice (thank you, Weymouth!).

Photos

Just a few of our recent photos:

End of Home Assignment

Our Home Assignment is coming to an end, and it has been full and busy. It is always great to spend time with so many people ... it is also rather difficult to keep up with emails and blog posts - sorry!

The main event at the beginning of this month was Marc breaking his collarbone, which unfortunately meant us cancelling our visit to St John's Hatfield, and the first of our meetings in Bedford. He is much better now, and very impressed with his experience of the NHS.