The thirteen year-old boy next door collects postage stamps. Not in any sophisticated way - he just pastes them straight into a notebook in whatever order they arrive in. He was very proud of his collection of six dog-eared, well-fingered, samples which he showed me when I first arrived here. He must now have around two hundred, I would imagine, nearly all of which came from me. Back in the UK I had a pile of stamps and an old stamp book from childhood days festering in a bulging box file, of no interest to anyone but too good to throw away. When I did my run to the UK in April I brought half of them back with me. I had intended just giving them to him but then I thought why not let him earn them? They would then have more value than a thousand stamps just dumped on him. So now he gets my bananas from the stall just down the road and in return I give him ten or so stamps. A good deal, I reckon!
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