Saturday, January 31, 2015

Thursday, January 29

Sarah made a batch of banana muffins to share with our neighbors today.  One of the geckos who lives in our house has a sweet tooth, and that tooth is particularly attuned to the taste of banana muffins and banana muffin batter.  For years, we have watched this gecko sneak up to the dirty dishes to lick the batter off bowls and spoons or creep along the counter to eat the crumbs left from our breakfast of banana bread.
gecko licking banana cake batter
This morning "Pat the Pet", as we affectionately call him, found the batter clinging to the dirty dishes delicious as always.  Even funnier, when he turned around and saw his reflection in the coffee press, his tail stiffened and he froze for several minutes.
gecko looking at reflection
He finally returned to licking the utensils clean before we shooed him away to clean up.
After school, I delivered banana muffins to six households.  I have to go in order around the village, or I forget which house has received the goodies.  I found little Mitchell (isn't she a cutie?) and her mama, Isabella, sitting at my friend Ofoaen's house, next door to their own house.
Isabella & Mitchell eating banana cake
When I delivered muffins to Margaret, she asked for some pain meds.  When I returned with the meds, I also brought my notebook and a pen so I could squeeze in a little bit of language learning. 
Mitchell eating banana cake THURS
I focused on what we call predicate adjectives in English.  The grammar here is totally different, though.  Adjectives like cold or afraid take masculine, feminine, and plural endings, but they also can become intransitive verbs.  So I can say, "Inu nagea?" (You afraid?) to a female friend, or I can say, "Nageare!" (Afraid!) when a little one is afraid of me.  I'm setting up frames to try out patterns and to learn new words.

2 comments:

Bartokhound said...

I love this post about Pat the Pet! How funny he loves banana muffins/bread and is afraid of his own shadow (rather, thought another gecko was going to fight him for the muffin mix). Great, great story and pics!

Love,

Kayla

Anonymous said...

Love the Pat the Gecko pictures :-) That's funny that he's got a taste for banana muffin batter. They are less fun if they happen to get on you, but geckos and especially baby geckos are so cute. :-)
~Ruth