After homemade bread toast for breakfast and devos I went to the office (3 paces from the kitchen) and got to work. I spent the first part of the morning printing things for the next literacy class and then I left the office around 10am to just go hang with some peeps. Since finishing language study my work keeps me in the office a lot more, and while I see many people through here daily, I still want to get out at least one day a week and go visit with people in their villages (for the sake of continuing and building our relationships with them). I headed to a village about a 25 minute hike away because I hadn’t seen many of its inhabitants for a while, and I hung out with three guys there until lunch. Right after lunch with Maggie she took off with Elizabeth for a village in the opposite direction to go visit some folks. I went back to my office and while listening to “Battle Dancing Unicorns (with glitter)” (look it up) I finished printing the stuff I had started that morning. Upon completion of that task I got back to my translation work and got a couple solid hours in on that which brought me to ‘bounce time’.
‘Bounce time’ is a twice weekly gathering of the adult members of the Pal team to discuss language and culture and anything else that needs discussing. We stand out on the chopper pad and keep an eye on our playing kids while we ‘bounce’. Today we bounced a couple new language things, and then discussed the man with the broken arm, and then briefly entertained the idea of starting a little store in Pal for the folks – the idea from a young pal man who asked earlier that day that we discuss it. We’d love to be able to do that but at this point it’s neither possible or practical for us to do. Currently it’s a two day hike for a Pal person to go purchase a new bush knife, or batteries for their flashlight, or whatever else they might need.
Anyways, after bounce time I was informed, to my pleasant surprise, that it was date night, and so my wife and I headed home while our coworkers watched our kids. We had a delicious beef and potato stew for dinner and then my wife pulled out a chocolate pudding pie that she secretly made and successfully hid from me until that moment. At 7:30 we retrieved our kids from their baby-sitters and then put them to bed. We talked for a while and then watched more Sherlock. Solid show by the way, Season 1 so far, that is. Now, my wife is falling asleep and I’m trying to keep up with my promise to do this blog 7 days straight. And now I’m done for the day. G’night.