Football again

About a year ago I attended my first football match.  My abiding memory, apart from the warm welcome and hospitality from Ross County, was of absolutely freezing feet.  Although I'm a bit concerned about setting an annual precedent, this morning I attended another - James' second match for the Hillcrest Middle School team.  Comparisons can be invidious.  Suffice it to say that today I was sitting in a sleeveless dress enjoying the warm harmattan breeze instead of being wrapped up in a thick winter coat with long scarf, hat and two pairs of gloves.  Unfortunately the score for James' team was not as favourable as it was for Ross County a year ago (1:1); Hillcrest lost 4:1 but then they were playing high school boys.

The tension!

Apart from watching football I'm working away at my Hausa.  I'm at the stage where there are so many words fluttering around my head it takes a while to catch the right ones, put them in the correct order and then attempt an approximation of appropriate tone and pronunciation.  It will get easier with practice and teacher Jummai is a very patient, good-humoured and wise woman.  At the moment I can say a few things that I've done, the same things that I shall do but not what I'm actually doing.  The excitement for next week will be learning the present tense.

Another excitement (apart from the grade 8 pancake breakfast on Saturday morning) will be moving into our house in Bukuru.  If all goes to plan we hope to be sleeping there next Saturday night.  All the major work has been done, it just needs to be cleaned.  We're also intending to build a fence around the property to keep our dog in, other dogs out and to separate us from the police training school right behind.  This may not be finished before we move next week as we're looking at alternatives - even in Nigeria it costs an awful lot to put up a fence.