Yesterday, Margaret and I worked on learning some prepositions: the pomelo is in the basket (keva okolin babolo); the umalau is underneath the table (umalau tafe ena umu); the manioko is on top of the book (legis foga manioko otat). Hard stuff for this old brain. Then, she came up to our house so I could record her telling a story. She told me about what she had done the day before, and then I played it back while she translated line by line into Pijin. I had brought her some rice mixed with Chinese cabbage and tinned tun, and when she came up to the house, she had emptied the rice and replaced it with her secret recipe lelenga and some really nice motued fish.
We woke again this morning to lots of clouds, and the rain quickly followed. For over a week now, we've had loads of clouds and rain. Our batteries miss the sun.
Eta and I went out in the rain this morning to finish up my bush garden. The rain quickly soaked us as we dug heaps and cut ubikola sticks to plant. We worked for several hours, dug and planted back forty heaps of ubikola, and then we switched sides of the garden to dig more heaps and plant umalau. After a few heaps, we decided to go back and rest for a little bit before we finished. I grabbed some cookie dough out of the fridge and baked some chocolate chip cookies as a quick thank you for Eta.
We decided that she would come get me to go back in the afternoon. She actually offered to go back and finish by herself, but I turned her down. I have to practice digging those heaps! Around 3 o'clock, we went back in the rain to finish up the umalau, only twenty-five heaps this time. Now my bush garden is finished, and I can turn my attentions to the small garden close to the house. Whew!
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