Village life...

Ok so the whole point of this blog is to write about village life, so the title of this post is a little lame/ridiculous, but oh well. It will be the first of many. I made two accomplishments this week that are worth sharing. 

First, Bronwyn had her first bath. When you have to draw water, make a fire, heat water on the fire, gather your tub and clean it out, organize soap, wash clothes and towels and try to not get any of the "should be clean" stuff dirty before it comes in contact with the clean baby - sheesh! It's kind of an ordeal! None of this run the bathtub, wash the baby, bada bing bada boom. She did well though and I think we need make this a pretty frequent happening (is that a 'duh' statement? sorry, I'm new at this) given all the fingers that touch this child's face, hands and feet on a daily hourly minutely basis. 

Secondly, we managed to ukupapa umwana - i.e., strap the baby to my back. We came to Zambia with a moby wrap and an ergo, both of which we used quite a lot while we were in the states. We will still use them here in Zambia as there are plenty of scenarios where doing so just makes sense. But there are times in village life when I just want to blend in, and quite honestly, having Bronwyn on by back with a chitenge is probably the most impressive blending I can do. And to top it all off, she sleeps really well back there. Ukupapa-ing this baby is like slipping her an infant unisom. She loves the rocking. I'm really uptight about keeping her out of the sun and I think that's perfectly legit. I've fried my adult skin enough to know that that's no good. I cringe at the thought of her angelically white skin being toasted by all those UV rays. Ouch. But seriously, look at her? Doesn't she look like she belongs there?!?!