[Editor’s note: A Spanish translation of this letter appears here.]
Greetings! Happy late Birthday
Time flies around here! We’ve cleared 300 more acres of land for cultivating. Last week we burnt a large part of it and now they are bulldozing it into piles to re-burn and spread through the land. It’s fantastic to just push the jungle back and develop this place by leaps and bounds. Jim never did do anything ½ way, remember? The word impossible is not even in our dictionaries here!
Glad to get Linda & Germaine’s addresses. I’ll write both of them right away. Would have written Linda sooner—but lost her address in the rush. Also don’t have Bob’s. Would like to get some info from him on sewage systems, composting, power systems, wells and any other creative ideas he has. Maybe he’ll be down there sometimess and can get a look at the booklet you got (Progress Report – Summer 1977). We’ll probably be putting out another one soon too.
I’ll be anxious to find out about that Guyanese guy and why he didn’t like it here. I’ll bet he had never been up country. It’s like Dar as Salaam is kind of blah in some places and hot, but when you go up country you find the beauty, better weather, the people – everything is different.
Don’t really need anything personally – unless you run across a light weight hooded poncho for the rain (for my birthday).
Will’s been working on his handwriting. At this point – all M’s and W’s are HIS letter. He’s getting tall & brown, is very independent, dresses himself, ties his own shoes and peels his own oranges and combs his own hair. Even he swings on the vines, but lucky for me, he can’t climb very high yet —– but if he’s around Wabby [Nawab Lawrence] very long, it won’t be long before he is up the vine waving! EEEK.
Bye for now—
Love
Pat
[writing scribbles “W” and more, probably from Will]
p.s. Glad you heard some good words from Hank and Jenny. You said some others weren’t so kind – who were they & what did they have to say? Not that it matters a whole lot, just interested. pg