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Thank you for the enthusiastic, loving response to the photo of Bella. Many of you resonate with the profound connection that can exist between a child and her Baba. Today I've been working on a writing project and have now packed and will soon be leaving for the beach (look for beach photos and Sue's family reunion coming up in the next few days). I've decided that when I am running around in a tizzy and cannot take the contemplative time I need for photography, I'll just take a picture of the view out my window, as it is such a wonderfully various, unpredictable, gorgeous view of sky and city. We are hovering, right now, on the edge of a slight promise of rain that probably won't come and won't put out the many forest fires that are burning in Oregon and California. The drought continues, but for this day there was some coolness, a few raindrops, and a roll of blue-gray clouds in a complicated sky. The people in Lesotho called this kind of near-rain matta oa tsintsi,  "the spit of flies."

Speaking of Lesotho, some of you know that my closest friend there was M'e Mpho Nthunya, who wrote Singing Away the Hunger by telling me the stories and letting me read them back to her. I learned this week that her namesake, Mpho, born while we were working on the book, has given birth to her first child: a girl, Kamohelo. M'e Mpho loved babies, looked forward to the births of her grands and great-grands no matter the circumstances, always saw newborns as a promise of joy, a proof of the generosity of the universe. Rejoice, M'e Mpho, at the arrival of another woman in your lineage.