#SoCS Jan. 27/18 – #JusJoJan Day 27 – Movement (or not!)- 27

Linda’s prompt for SoCS this week…

Your prompt for #JusJoJan and Stream of Consciousness Saturday is: movement. However, don’t use the word “movement.” Choose some sort of movement, and base your post on that. Enjoy!

My in-laws are in their late 80s. They are agile, mentally active and physically very well-preserved. My father in law runs around, doing household chores and taking charge of repairs in the house and maintaining relations with the people in the village. My mother-in-law who is almost of the same age, manages the kitchen, supervises the shopping, particularly the buying of quality fish, cooking food, storing stuff, making goodies and doing all things a grandmother usually does. Of course, they have domestic help but they do their fair share of work. In the evenings, they spend their time watching sitcoms or the news on TV. This keeps them thinking and talking about various events till their bedtime, which is the only time of the day they rest.

My in-laws have a wide social network- they live in a village where many of their family members too have homes. After church each Sunday and at other times of the week, these families visit each other and catch up with one another. This also keeps their minds thinking.

My in-laws were both teachers in Africa from the 1960s to the 1980s. Ever since their retirement they have been at their house living a retired life but retirement of the type where people sit down and stretch out their legs, and say, oh, I am so old and it hurts me here and there is not for them. Their retirement is more active than most people's.

I forgot to mention that one of their pastimes is to attend weddings, baptisms, funerals, and other social events of which they get notification from their newspapers.

All in all, my in-laws have a well-oiled machinery and social support system that runs like clockwork and provides them with the social, mental, emotional and intellectual stimulation that any human being can ever hope to achieve.