Some interesting questions

We recently received an email from Nathan (a friend, MBA colleague and constant distraction through at least half of my modules) with a number of interesting questions (in italics) from his children  that I thought I might try and answer through the blog. So, Luke and Grace, the following blog entry is for you but thank you for asking because a lot of other people might have been wanting to ask the same questions!

Grace says ":) Is it always sunny there?, What do you eat?, How do you make the food there?, and finally I wish you came back to play and make popcorn (You have smiley faces).
Now then, I'll start with the weather; when we first arrived it was around the end of the rainy season so actually it was still a bit wet. It rained every night for the first couple of weeks and there were big thunderstorms with lots of lightening,  wind and, of course, very noisy thunder. One night, the thunder was so loud it woke us up and I nearly jumped out of bed with fright! Sozzle thought that was very funny and told everyone we met about it for weeks afterwards. The rain stopped about 3 months ago though, and then yes - it was always sunny and very hot. We had to wear lots of sun cream and special potions to stop the mosquitos biting us every night. Now, it's also windy however, so there is a lot of sand and dust blowing around and at night it gets very very cold. It is the winter here but the sun still comes out and it gets warm for most of the day. There are less mosquitos around now as well, so that's good.

What do we eat? Fish mostly, and lots of enormous prawns. Sometimes we have oysters (Daddy will explain what they are and might even tell you what "aphrodisiac" means, but probably not until you are quite a bit older). Even the children eat raw oysters which they have floating around in a bowl of water like massive grey bogies. You have to hook them out with two fingers or you can't pick them up because they are so slimy. Yum. Because we live by a river near the sea, all these things are brought to us by people walking past. Most of the fish and prawns are still alive when they are given to us because people don't have fridges and freezers to keep things fresh. When we get meat it's a bit like trying to eat a wellington boot, so we don't have it very often. We eat a lot of a big fruit called papaya and lots of bananas because that's what the people here grow. The children here don't get sweets like in England. Instead they wait for the Cabasera trees (which are very big and very old, see pic below) to start dropping their fruit. The fruit are big hard pods which they smash on a rock to open and inside there is a kind of sweet tangy sherbert that covers big seeds and the kids go mad for it. They suck all the sherbert of them then spit the seeds out. It's quite funny to see them because they like to put as many in their mouths as possible whenever they have the chance.
Here are some photos to help you get a better idea...

We are very lucky because we have a man here who looks after us and cooks for us but usually people cook rice and fish on fires outside their houses (which are made from mud). Yes, we will be coming back and we will make popcorn again if we can afford to buy the ingredients.

Luke says" You look a bit browner than you were. Ed you have funnier hair than you used to have and Sozzle I want you to come back with Ed (don't stay forever). 
Yes, I probably do look a bit browner now. This might be something to do with the layer of dirt that I am permanently covered with. The people here can't believe how white we are and often try and pull the the moles off my skin. Yes, my hair is even funnier now and is likely to be absolutely hilarious by the time we come back.

Luke also asks: What are the children's names?, how hot is it?, did you make your own house?, and do you make lots for other people, and what do you drink?
The here names are not like English names, but here are some examples: Girls: Pikinina, Vanya, Femia, Joia, Antonetta, Aquilina Boys: Naka, Romijero, Nua, Ismail, Eliseo, Bruno, Herculano, Socrates and there are now a couple of boys called Edu, after me. It is quite hot, about as hot as the hottest days at home. We did not make our own house but everyone else does here. We have only "made" one house here and that will be for the orphans in a few years time when the organisation we have worked for here finally gets it's comeuppance and the state of the people reclaim the land. We drink water. And beer sometimes...