Flamboyant Trees

With the rains- 3 days now- have come the most, okay 2nd most, beautiful trees. Since we arrived in August, the streets have been lined with Jacaranda trees- purple flowers.

Now the Jacaranda flowers have fallen and the red Flamboyant trees are blooming-

Have I told you what a beautiful country Africa is? I tell Moses all the time.

Our avocado, mango, papaya and lemon trees are all starting to bear fruit. It is so exciting!The kids check them out everyday to see if they are ready yet. In our impatience we have taken many fruits that are not quite ripe- just to taste.

Moses and I went to the Rose Garden to pick out some new flowers for summer and buy some fertilizer. I am going to have him plant some yellow daylilies- that will remind me of the Bradley girls and Florida. We also bought a Yesterday, Today and Tomorrow plant. We have a lot of purple, red, white flowers in the yard- the yellow lilies will be a nice contrast!!

Who's right??

Maybe that is not a fair question...

I'm reading a book right now comparing the African culture to that of the Western Culture(European/American). The book is written to help the Westerner better understand his environment when in Africa.

Help me to understand this... In Lusaka- there is a 70% unemployment rate...which means 3 out of 10 people work.

In the US, there is a 6.1% unemployment rate(Sept 2008)...which means 9.3 people out of 10 work.

Just grasp that for one moment...In the Great Depression, the US had an 11% unemployment rate.

The majority of Africans work to survive where "the accumulation of capital and wealth is the goal of the Western culture". This is the jest of what I was reading...Africans live for today and the needs they have "today". They, as a society, take care of each other. For example, I asked Jane today- if your neighbor needed money and you had money saved for Elizabeth's school- what would you do??? I would give her half and keep half for school then ask someone else to help pay for school. She said, "I believe that if I share what God has given to me, He will continue to bless me." How could I argue with that??

I tried to explain to her that we, Americans, take care of our own immediate family but rarily do we share the financial burdens with our friends, neighbors, etc. It sounded weird coming out of my mouth, especially when she repeated it back to me- "You mean you don't give money to other family members or friends who need your help." I tried to explain that all my family members had jobs and were self-supportive- that it was easier to get a job in the US than in Africa.

It is interesting to think about...I guess in the US we also have bank loans at our disposal or we have saved for a rainy day or we have too much pride to ask a friend for money. We would just go out and get another job to get us where we needed to be. Not an option here.