It has been too long, dear friends.
We are finding that although we absolutely love off grid living and having our own place, it is also extremely time consuming. However, many of the biggest time and energy sinks are temporary for us, while others have to live with them permanently. For example, although we currently fetch water from an outside tap, there are plans to plumb it into our house! Although we are currently walking an extra two kilometers most days to manage our freezer food, because we haven't managed to get our freezer up to our new place, we do have solar capacity for it. But still, there hasn't been much time for non-essentials like blog posts.
We were also fortunate enough to spend a week in Cape Town with friends and family members - and our beloved cats, who have had to stay at home.
It was actually very good timing for a break from Zithulele: lots of chatting, debriefing and time for reflection on how far we have come up here. And coming back felt like coming home, so we must be doing something right!
So how are we doing after four months in the middle of nowhere? The most surprising thing we have noticed as we've had time to reflect is that we both feel a deep sense of peace and rightness about where we are. Certainly there are many challenges. We're still not entirely sure what our jobs are exactly, or how to even approach the multitude of problems in rural education. We also have a lot to learn about living in such a different setting - we will be running out of almost every last scrap of groceries this week, as shopping plans didn't quite line up. But, bumps in the road notwithstanding, we feel like we are in the right place, for us, for now. What a gift that sense of rightness is!
We feel a lot like my sturdy monstera plant: repotted in a slightly odd container, and a little surprised by this, once in a while, but still thriving.
And of course some things stay the same! We are still homebodies who spend a lot of time reading and puttering in the evenings. We still enjoy finding fun and crazy ways to cut down on waste and live frugally. We are still persisting with our running (some quick flat runs in Cape Town convinced us that we haven't quite lost our running mojo). Adam is increasing distance and duration significantly again after his back operation last year, and all seems well so far. We both find the processing time and endorphin boosts from exercise extremely helpful.
There is much to be said about work, especially as we dig deeper into the profound brokenness of schools here. But we will save that for another time.
Love
Joanna and Adam