August 3

Guess what I saw on my way to "work" this morning: Monkeys! Apparently, they are the deer or possums of this area. I saw about 6 gray, furry, 2 ft high, black-faced, real monkeys tramping about someone's front yard.
"Work" was slow to begin with, although I enjoyed talking at lunch with this young guy who works here and has traveled through the east coast of the US by train (I didn't know people used trains in America). He's even been to Birmingham. Then I talked via a poor international cell phone connection to my professor and he put me to work preparing some stuff for going into schools this next week. Oh and I had about 5 cups of hot Rooibos tea (yum!)
When I got home, I went on a super short walk with David, Janet, and the dogs- so I guess you can go walk outside, but you have to have dogs and other people with you.
We had dinner by the fire, which was very nice and then I read by the fire for a while.
There is this 38-year-old guy who is renting the Hotchkiss' back house, but I never really see him because he is usually out. Tonight however, he came in the house to get Janet to cut his hair. He is a VERY talkative fellow. He told me the Bible story of lowering the cripple through the roof from FOUR different perspectives (the house owner's wife, Jesus, the cripple, and one other- I think I may have zoned out). He also added details about roofs because he does roof thatching work.