My mother is taking a tour of the new house via Skype. I leaned the laptop so she can see where she's going,pleased that our Internet connection in Zimbabwe is holding. "This is the living room," I say. Then I tell mydaughter,s;Show Grandma the bed for the mummy and the daddy. " From a continent away, Grandma gave herapproval. Mum had a dollhouse,too. My grandmother,a single mother, did not have enough money to buy my mother areal dollhouse. So Mum made do,laboring over her square cookie tin for years. She stuck patterns on the bright walls : tin cans of jam and bags of flour to make sure the dolls' store was overflowing. My mother passed her love of life in miniature(  )  on to me very early. At age 5,1 made chests of drawers for my dollhouse bedroom from matchboxes glued together. Unlike my mother,l was given some ready-made doll furniture and accessories. My mother encouraged me,always responding to my calI,"Come to see what I've made Lrur IIly  clollhuuse ! " I spent hours writing a book with the unoriginal but certainly accurate title " How To  Make Dolls'  House Furniture". The book was lost in a household move. But the satisfying feeling of filling up blank pages with my own ideas stayed with me,pushing me into a career centered on words. My daughter turned 3 recently, and last month I put a strong empty cardboard box,about the size of a tea tray  ,in Cassia's bedroom. I searched the shops for dollhouse furniture. But an afternoon's searching yielded only a pink plastic toilet and sink. It doesn't matter,l told myself. I showed Cassia how to make plates for her table from coloured buttons. Fascinated, she collected black stones. What my mother gave me was much more than a fascination with tiny things :It was the ability to view things from a new perspective  , to put oneself in another person's shoes , and to solve problems with whatever is at hand. What was the writer's mother looking at is  _  .
a photo of a house online a house in Zimbabwe Cassia's self-made dollhouse the writer's newly-bought house