Temporary replacement baby

I did a silly thing and came all the way down to the internet cafe to write this post and forgot my camera, with accompanying videos and pictures from recent days, at my house. Sorry about that! Next time. For now you're stuck with my words, no cute babies, and who wants that?

Ok, I will compromise a LITTLE and post one cute baby photo - everyone get excited, because my gorgeous nephew Jamie is now officially three months old! If he and his brother only knew the truckload of African goodies coming their way... Maybe he does, and that's the reason for that beaming smile!

Now, to business. My roommate has returned from Zanzibar, so I'm no longer living like a hermit, which is lovely. I have developed an intensely painful sore throat that appears to be just an unpleasant viral infection, which makes it difficult to talk and/or swallow - it's certainly not the end of the world for me to be cutting back on EITHER of those things for a few days, though!

Meanwhile, I'm prepping for the arrival of my lovely parents, and the multiple suitcaseloads of donations from you lovely people and other doctors in CT. Unfortunately, due to Amazon's wish list settings, I can't actually see WHO has purchased all of these items - so I'd like to thank my wonderful aunts Susie and Rita, family friends Priscilla Jencks, Rick and Anne Calvert, and my struggling recent grad and STILL generous friend, Meghan Sellars. Others have donated physical supplies - the Bolinsky/Harris family, the Sack family, and others. I know there are many more of you who have contributed, and I would really like to acknowledge you, so drop me an email or leave a comment to let me know!

Things at the orphanage are going really well - the garden is half planted and the daily rain (not bad, about an hour a day) means that I get to be lazy and not water it and it grows anyway! The kids are beautiful and happy, and I have many pictures to document that, but as I mentioned, I'm an idiot and forgot them. The chickens and chicks are doing well, although the prodigal 15th chick has not returned - still, 14 out of 16 isn't bad. For chicks, that is, not babies. I feel strongly that our success ratio for babies should be higher than that. So far, so good.

Pretty much everything else I want to say requires photo documentation, so I think I will quit while I'm ahead today. Lots and lots of love from TZ.