for some reason the internet has smiled upon my picture uploading today, so i'm putting on as many as i can. I have been staying at solomon's place while he's in zanzibar and i think about how to deal with my fleas at home. i am hoping to employ the idea of crop rotation. by removing their biggest feeding source, myself, they will die off naturally without my needing to spray anymore chemicals. i do love being at solomon's place. it's a complex of families renting rooms around the main house where the family who are the landlords live. all within a gate, which is the only way even modestly living locals feel safe from thieves. within our gates out back, though we are only a 40 minute walk up the hills from town center we have three cows and several chickens and roosters. most of those renting the rooms share the one outhouse and one bathing stall. you duck the cow to enter the outhouse. the people are some of the nicest i've met here - so warm and enveloping= taking me in as their family/neighbor- all the kids politely call out shikamoo mzungu to me everytime they see me. several of them like to come in and play in my place while i cook on the kerosene stove- they like it even better if solomon is there-= when they get too tiresome i say now it's study time, hand them a swahili english book and they stop right away and settle on the couch to sound out words. i figure they get a lot of play time, but not actually a lot of study opportunity. kids here are like sponges for any sort of teaching effort. they adore it if i help them to read or scratch out arithmatic equations in the dust- anything