Manna House

After a week of walking and watching in Yorkshire, we are now settled in at Manna House, a hospitality house of OM, in London. Here we will be hosting people from all over the world, as they come to attend conferences, stay over between flights, and have some R&R in London. Already we've met people from Germany, the Philippines, a Dutch couple from Zimbabwe, Americans, and Chinese. Oddly enough, we're here in London surrounded by people who are not Brits. Fascinating stories flow over the dinner table, with English flavored by the spice of worldwide accents. (Oddly enough, foreigners speaking English are often more intelligible than local English people speaking English. And I find myself, still, self-conscious about my American accent when talking with Brits--more so even than when I'm speaking Spanish in Mexico.)

One family is composed of a German married to a Filippino, with a young daughter and son, living in Ireland. So the 6 year old daughter switches between German (in a couple dialects) and English with a light Irish lilt. And with her dark hair and rosy cheeks, she looks Mongolian. I took some portraits of their family this morning, in the brief moment when the light was good (it's been bland and flat for most of our time in the UK so far), just before the rains came.