Another woman like my mother?

Somewhere there is or was another just like my mother. A person who couldn't kep a handle on her hobby and let it get all out of control. Perhaps she was a worse case than my mother whose addiction had far ranging effects, but never got as far as Zambia. Perhaps if she'd lived longer...

When a few of the oldest of her six children started leaving home, she needed something to take up the slack. Somehow she got into soap making. A pretty clean hobby, you might think compared to some. However, this activity quickly escalated and the supply soon outstripped the demand (if there was any). Not only was she making soap at home and had the neighbors saving their fat for her, but she started teaching classes in soap making. Everyone inthe family and then even relatives were expected to do their part and use more soap or find outlets for it. I know personally that an entire dorm wing at Montana St. College was kept clean by it for almost a year; I did my part.

Well you can imagine my surprise and the waves of emotions that poured over me when what should come out of several boxes from the container shipment, but these brown cakes in the shape of tin forms also included. This seemed a 50 year old time-capsule from my past. It was not just the soap itself nor the tin forms, but the quantity that spoke to me. I could see my mother working on her soap and smell the basement where much of the activity took place and hear her voice, pleading in a demanding way for me to grind up that brick-hard stuff so she could use it in the washer (this is as close as she ever got to child abuse). I don't she ever shipped any abroad. It is the only soap now used here in the school restrooms. So I am daily transported overy many miles, through many years and somewhere there is a family relieved of an excess of homemade soap. Thanks for the memories.

Some benefits from the economic slowdown.

About a year ago, Phillip had told me that electrical service here was getting worse with ever more frequest blackouts. But since I have been here, we have not had many. Some weeks go by without a break (galling now that we have our super generator).

The explanation is that a year ago, the Zambian electric company had more customers than it could support. The largest consumer was the copper industry which was using 47% of the total. Now that copper is now 'on hold' there is plenty for everyone.

Force

Force or Fossy likes stories and being read to. He isin 1st grade now, but out habit of reading together goes back 3 years during my first visit and we established an evening read in which many others joined (crowded) in. Force being the youngest was usually in my lap and other would 'press' around even on the hottest evening, each needing to se the book.

Besides reading, we enjoyed playing together. We invented a game one when he had a big stick. He would grab one end and I the other and then he'd lead me on a tour of his play area. Then it would be my turn and the more ridiculous the tour, the better, in tight cirles, up stairs and down. To anyone watching I would proudly point out the "big fish" I had caught. Even now at time Fossy is called Big Fish by the others.

He was too young for school then and the only child at home when all the others left in the morning. He played energetically by himself, often doing what he saw the ever present workmen doing. I remembe him digging 'footings' with a stick roughly 1:40 scale of the real thing not far off.

From time to time, he would get lonesome and 'visit' school especially during recess. Once he came in and seated himself at a school table. He seemed very student-like so I gave him a pencil and paper. I never saw a child work so diligently on his symbol representation of writing and when not writing he seemed a careful observer. Well now he is doing the real thing. I have yet to encounter him in his classroom.

For the month of March in my 'house rotation', I have been eating in Fossy's house and he has sat beside me during all the meals. He is quiet but volunteers to say grace more often then asked. It isn't easy to get a word in amongst the older kids chatter during meals. But once over and before the table is cleared he there with a book. He has to be fast for there are 2 older girls who will cut him out of the action, though they are much more into the attention they get than any story, judging by how they talk to eachother and anyone else in the room while I am reading. I try to give Force priority and always take at least one of the books he brings and make sure there is not a girl between us while reading it.

Last Saturday night, Zambia played Egypt in soccer and everyone else left quickly after the meal to watch the game on TV and Fossy and I had a wonderful uninterupted reading session. I think Uncle Sam tired first, said good night to Big Fish and trundled off to his bed.