Caleb & Mila Update

Caleb and Mila have both slotted into this new lifestyle with absolute ease.
They head off to pre-school each morning where they are the only two English speaking kids.
Mila comes home every day and tells me all about “my courser friends”
She is planning to marry Nti-Nti, Lindile’s son.
Sorry Adam. Such is the fickle hand of fate.
We have gone from a good Jewish boy, to a good Xhosa boy.
Her main concern is that her ring, which she has, will not fit her when she is a “grown up”.

Caleb, a little concerningly, but much to his mothers delight, (she wants her children to be interesting and free spirited) is going to marry a Prince.
Don’t you mean a Princess buddy?
No! I want to marry a prince.
Who knows, I might get to walk three children down the isle.


Their Xhosa is coming on pretty quickly and they are always singing songs in Xhosa and playing with all the nearby village kids.
They have a great time and are always doing something that gets them dirty.
Very happy and carefree children.
They normally get home from pre-school (a good walk in anybodies book) at about 1pm, and we try and enforce a nap, or at least quiet time.
Then they dash off climbing trees, visiting the lodge finding new suckers to read to them, playing cars with the village kids etc.
I have had to rescue Caleb at least once from the top of a tree. His bloody naughty little sister has no fear and he follows her blindly. I often see his little three year old body higher than I would like.



Mila very nonchalantly came to me last week when I was working on my laptop, she strolled across and said, “Um Dada (she has slipped form English Dad into Xhosa dada), Dada, Caleb fell out of a tree, our climbing ship tree, that we were pretending to be dragons in, and he hit his head on a branch when he fell down, and now he is lying on the ground, and dada, I am thirsty.”
True as bob, there he was under the tree on his back.
I had Skye informing me that she held up seven fingers and he said she was holding up three.
And “he said his name is Gerald.”
“Yes, thanks darling” through gritted teethe.
He seems fine though. He still has a big graze on his forehead, and when he sporadicaly gets a lot of bites (ticks and fleas) I tell Sonja that when he takes his shirt off he looks like a little boy covered in the pox from a 17th century Bruegal painting.
Them scratching their head isn’t always lice. A lot of the time it is chicken mites.

Mila has a habit of talking at the top of her voice, no volume control ever developed in that one, and when I am showering the three of them down at the lodge, in one 20 litre shower to save water, she always waits until there are other people showering before shouting out
“DADA, DID YOU BRING THE LICE SHAMPOO DOWN, DADA?
“I HAVE GOT BAD LICE DADA”

I have become adept at sneaking in and out when nobody is around.