It is winter in Nairobi. The weather is nice and as good as every day the sun appears between the clouds that are white and woolly without rain. Winter in Nairobi means that it is 15°C in the morning and everybody is using handkerchief and complain about how chilly it is. My office is on the shadow side of the building and currently I wear socks in my shoes and a woollen vest. This weekend some flu virus got hold of me to and concentrated on fighting it off as quickly as possible. On the whole it must have been a very boring weekend for Merijn, who also had a cold, but not was impaired in normal thinking procedures by overfilled cavities in the head. Here in Nairobi children are completely depending on their parents input to have a social life and activities, which is very different from Norway for us. In Nairobi children like Merijn are stuck behind the gate, most friends live a half hour drive away, if you are lucky with the traffic. In Norway Merijn would call his neighbour friends, or just walk over to see whether they were inn. He would usually inform me on where he was planning to go, and whether he was going to swim or something like that. In our neighbourhood it was normal that visiting kids would stay for diner and were sent home after sms or something like that. Or I would visit the neighbour little prior to picking up of Merijn for a chat. Sometimes Merijn wanted to stay over or have a guest. All in all for us in Norway it is very little formal and much more flexible than in Nairobi. If I do not organise some activity for Merijn he spends most of the weekend with his PC on his lab, watching DVDs and playing games. We did walk to our local shop and made chocolate cake, I did not spend days in bed, but was way beyond my usual energy level. Next weekend will be the last before the end of the school year. I have already asked Merijn whether he could find

out which of his friends he would like to visit using this last opportunity for a while. I’ll be still a single mum, but healthy and not afraid of Nairobi traffic.

comment on the pictures, both flower and leaf hopper are relatively large.