Spring!

Today is a perfect spring day.  The skies are blue and clear.  Not a cloud.  It's still sweater weather, comfortably cool.  The bright sunshine makes everything sparkle.

Over the weekend, Rafi (our guardian) came with another worker to cement the wall.  Rafi brought his nine-month-old daughter to play with a reed while he worked.

She stayed happy for a long time.

The cement worker.

View looking down on the ravines from the office patio.  You can see some people working in the yard to the right of the top banana frond (very faintly).  This is garden-preparing time, and they are digging the ground.

The tennis court below.  It seems strange to sit there and hear the "thock" of the balls; out of place somehow.

A small banana grove below with its water tower to collect rainwater to the right.

We had a good Zone Conference over the weekend.  The visiting authority referred to the Elders in Madagascar as the "green berets" of the mission field.  They have to deal with many conditions here which make their work more challenging than usual, but that doesn't seem to faze them.  When you talk to ones who are about to go home about how they feel, they always say that while they are excited to see their families, the time has gone too fast and they don't want to leave.