Yaa moom sama tuur

We had a grueling yet fun four days of travel, sitting, feasting, swatting flies, and sweating in Saint Louis for Korite. Nothing like relying on the kindness of friends, acquaintances, and strangers to make you happy to get back to your own space.

Of all the possible highlights of the long weekend the best was getting to spend time with my tuurando (namesake). She was born in February and her delinquent parents had not even managed to send me photos from her naming ceremony, where I was the guest of honor in absentia. (This failure it not entirely their fault, they have not managed to get the photographer to burn them CDs of the supposedly dozens of digital photos he took. Will be following up on that soon.)

Little Rama is well-tempered, has beautiful almond-shaped eyes, and is a total pudgeball, which in this difficult environment means she's a healthy baby who will hopefully have no problems when she gets fully weaned to solids. Much to her parents' chagrin, she is not a good sleeper and is easily awakened by both noise and light. The saying here is that you inherit seven traits from your namesake, so hopefully as she grows we will discover that I've offered her something more useful than my bad sleep habits!

Itching update: A is reporting much relief from previous symptoms, but we have yet to determine if this is because Saint Louis water is less harsh, or the fancy French skin cream is actually working. Stay tuned.