Kids had share day a few weeks ago. See Cole’s art work and tongue maneuvers- like his mom in her school days.
ISM link http://www.ismoshi.org/
Great bird of the week to find on campus…
Birch’s art and study about conserving water. They did math problems about water. Birch’s says “How much water is used if on the average a student uses the toilet three times a week”. ( Makes me think birch needs to drink more water if he is only using the toilet three times a week.)
The tent has been up for weeks. Signs placed throughout town. Finally the circus. Too loud for Birch’s ears – so lots of ear holding, but fun. It broke up one of the days that David is in China. Weekends can be long without power. We run out of child entertainment. I am ignoring both of them now just to blog. Cole has checked every five minutes the last hour to see if power is back so he can play Wii. UGHHH only 9 am . Matt did get bunnies yesterday. Check out Lisa’s blog for latest bunny picks. That helped yesterday pass some also.
Well enjoy the circus…….Africa style
Most people say there are crocs. But we asked the locals and they said hakuna mamba so we guessed we were ok. I think the last croc siting was ten years ago. No one ventured too far from the shore though. We had to walk 30 minutes down a very steep trail to get to the lake, but the kids did it up and down 4 times because swimming was so much fun. We got to see Mt Kili, eat good food with friends, drink, play, and fight flies. We may all have diarrhea next week due to the flies but it was worth it. The camp site is a new camp site owned by a European. It had actually picnic tables, toilets and showers. There was even a bar with semi cold stuff. We took our own tents and made a weekend of it. Cole wants to go back every week and he doesn’t even like to walk or hike- but he did great.
Check out the jumps and dives by Cole and Anderson.
So the school has international day to teach everyone about all the different cultures in the school. Last year we just went and this year we decided to help lead the America’s booth. Hard to pinpoint just one aspect of the Americas culture, but we did Native American culture. Offered headdresses for kids to make, tents, and bows and arrows. We also did a camp fire for roasting marshmallows and hot dogs. Some people had never done that before. Exhausting day that turned into adult drink fest due to the French booth. Next year we might do Mexican American food and tequila shots. Israeli booth always shows off and the India booth always paints henna. We did ok. Lisa managed the money of which we made…. none minus expenses. I had to buy feather dusters and chop off the feathers to get the feathers for the headdresses since there is no craft store and David almost died trying to pluck the chickens to death.
Birch’s unit at school was exploration. They went on a camping trip and they did a presentation. Birch had to dress up like Orville Wright. He was so disgusted that he had no kid size coat and jacket. He never realized he didn’t even though he has never worn one even in the states. Didn’t quite get the logic since he wears flip flops every day.. but we used dad’s also limited supply and I threaded some airplanes through his hat. He was the host so I added some videos. Our school really does well at encouraging public speaking!!! I asked Birch if he would run for office some day and he said Cole could since Cole is in kindergarten student council. Birch wants to be a coast guard, shark diver, reader, hiker type job.
I like how Birch dances and how his friend dances like a Masai next to him with the jumping.
It is so expensive for people to travel and visit us in Africa. Safari with good reason costs a ton. I mean you are in the middle of nowhere in Africa and getting electricity, water, good food, and cold beer and wine so it should be. At Ndutu lodge they have to bring in food from 3-4 hours away for everything they make us and they make us fancy stuff. We were so glad we got to share our experiences with the Raj, Cindy, Alina, and Caden.
We stopped by an Iraqw house and learned about their traditional housing. They used to live underground. Interesting story they tell as to why it is not so anymore. When the US sent old slaves back to Liberia and Liberia prospered then other African colonies decided to gain independence but needed support to do this. When the UN was coming to check out the progress the government in charge in TZ decided houses need to be in villages not rural, in a row, and above ground. So essentially it was against the law to stay in your traditional housing. Even today there are not underground houses. This was built to show us history.
Cole can get very bored believe it or not on Safari – especially day 2 or 3. So he plays with his camera. You can see his “ art”. IF you want real safari pics then you need to look at David’s Facebook page. Pole.
I am so lazy about posting. For Tierney’s bday we traveled thru town to a fancy hotel- Mt Meru. Brand new hotel. The guys were gone so we decided to celebrate in style. We beg for rain and nothing and then the one day we stay at the fancy hotel with the pool it rained- but the kids didn’t care. The best part was free internet access so we downloaded Jon Stewart all night. We can’t download more than 150 Mb a day a home and usually it is slow so we time out. Birch and Cole loved having TV for the night. In fact TV beat out the pool.
