Bunnies and Eggs for Christmas!

This morning  we had a good  surprise. Our rabbit, Mousey  had  some  BABIES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
She had five! They are 8cm. long and cute. They don't  have any fur yet. You can give us some names to choose for them! We are still waiting for Louisa's rabbit to have her babies.

Three bunnies

Two more bunnies

The other good news is that one of our new chickens is laying eggs! We have two new chickens called Hollie (Thanks, Hollie!) and Snowy (because she is white and it is snowing for Christmas in England).

We went to the market today and got treats for my birthday, apple juice, crisps and wafer biscuits and lots of plums. I had an apple in my stocking and ate it yesterday. My first apple for ages. It was good!

By Amisadai

Happy Christmas from Amisadai and Louisa

We want to say HAPPY CHRISTMAS to all our friends all over the world!

We hope you have a very fun Christmas! We are having fun here. We have made Christmas crackers and we have made stuffing to go with the chicken. We made granola and had raisins on it for breakfast! We have two rabbits that are going to have babies very soon and we have been making a run for them. We have been busy making presents.

Lots of love from Mims and Louisa xxxxx

"English-Canadian" Christmas Dinner with Laura

Mama Kiri and her family came for tea and Christmas cakes this afternoon!

Pulling crackers!

Stockings are hung! (added by Mum!)

All I Want for Christmas is My Two Front Teeth!

I lost another tooth! And guess who pulled it out? ME!! Now I have a big gap! And I had another visit from the Tanzania tooth fairy and got 1000 shillings! I went to a craft fair on Saturday and bought Louisa a lovely Christmas present! But it is a secret.

Science Fun! We made batteries. We had three jars and filled them with vinegar. And guess what, we used up the whole bottle!! We cut wire and put it in a loop and put it in the jars. We put a light bulb on the end of the wire and it worked!!! We also made a loop game with wire which buzzed if you touched the wire with the wire loop holder.



Making batteries!



Rabbits! Last Saturday we borrowed a boy rabbit. It had a week with Mousy and then a week with Louisa’s rabbit and we hope we will have baby bunnies soon!

Christmas! We have a Christmas tree! Speditio and Lucy have helped us decorate! We made paperchains and playdough ornaments.

Spedito cut the top off a tree for us! Yay!!

  

Art! In art we pretended we were Beatrix Potter and went in the garden to do "naturalist art." I drew lettuces and rhubarb and also chickens.

See our Swahili page to find out the Swahili word for "tooth"! (Lots of teeth is "meno.")

Louisa's Bugs n' Things

kumbi kumbi

ants

senene

It has been raining hard today and so there are lots of bugs everywhere. We saw three big snails and lots of "senene" and so so many ants outside and lots and lots of flying things called kumbikumbi (we find the ground on our porch covered in their lost wings in the morning!). I have lots of bites!

Yesterday I ground up peanuts in our kinu. First we roast the nuts, then grind them to big bits and tiny bits which get sorted in our cheka ckeka which is like a sieve. We like peanut sauce!





The cheka cheka



The kinu







On Sunday we went to an Advent afternoon at the Danish Mission. We sang carols (two in Danish!) and we made paper decorations and candle holders. This is good because we didn't have any and as the power keeps going out, we often need candles at bedtime. 

Danish Paper Cut-outs



Snail



Pigs! by Amisadai

On sataday I went to swap my cocks for hens.
When we got there we saw a pig. Gues what? we saw piglets been born!!!!!!!!!!!!! I saw the mummy pigs bottom get big and then legs popped out. Something yellow was all stuck to the piglets and brown bits too. They were very cute about the size of my two hands. There were nine piglets. They tried to get some milk, but sometimes they couldn't find it. One piglet fell out of the stall when he popped out, so the man had to push him back in. He was squealing. One got stuck under the mummy and squealed very loudly. also I
saw a new   puppy and lots&lots of chicks!!!

Piglets try to get the milk

This this little piggy went the wrong way!

On Saturday we also got wood to fix our fence. We got it at the Kihesa market.

I love going up on the roof!

On Sunday, we had our first Advent Sunday. We made a wreeth and lit the first candle.



Our Advent Wreath

See our Swahili Page formy new word today! Can you guess what it is? It is very hard to say.

Rains and Clay Pots

We both have lots to say this week! Yesterday we had a very big rain storm. We huddled round our solar light on the dining room table doing some Christmas crafts for advent while the power was out! The office in Andrew and Miriam’s house was flooded and it also leaked in Ben and Sam’s bedroom, and Daddy went to help sort it out. A tree fell down in our garden and some of the steps have broken. When we went out this morning to investigate, we found two hu-u-u-uge snails and lots and lots of big ants!


Measuring for the foundations

On Friday, we both went with Daddy to a village. We went to measure foundations for a new church building. We also went to a river to get sort out getting some sand for some clay for our stoves. We saw a lady making lots of lovely pots. We made our own pots last week when we were making our first stove! It is really fun and very dirty! In the village, we visited the pastor’s house and had yummy honey bread and sweet chai (tea). We had ugali and beans for lunch which we both liked. We saw a puppy and a little pig and lots of chicks! When we left, a man gave us a present of a chicken! It flapped about a lot, and when we put it in the back of the EI land rover with Louisa, she freaked out! Then the chicken flapped about even more and did a a poo! We had to clean it up and put the chicken in a box!





Making pots



Our clay pots!









The old church building



The other day when we went to get the milk, we saw some baboons on the road! They were very noisy! At school we have been learning about poems and I (Amisadai) have written some of my own. We have also been learning about life during the war, and we got a very interesting letter from our Great Grandpa all about it. We already know all about rationing, because we do that with our oats and with the chocolates Auntie Carleen sent us and the sweets James and Dan sent us!

Amisadai’s News!



Our first two eggs!

I am enjoying my new Chickins ! Last week we bought nine hens and a cock. But sadly one of the hens died. But Today we got our first egg!!! We have called the cock R2D2 (thanks Sebastien!) and we will try to get photos of the other chickens that some of our friends have named for us! We love them, especially Maisy!

Me relaxing in the hammock!

Me and baby Happy!

At shule “shoolay” (that’s school in Swahili) we are learning about electricity with our circuit kit. In our house, our electricity goes off a lot. Even in the middle of making a cake or cooking porridge for breakfast! I can see how the circuit cuts! We are going to get a solar light so we can use energy from the sun to light a bulb. I am doing a book study on a book called “A New Coat for Anna” and learning about World War II. It is Remembrance Day on Thursday. I am going to make some poppies.

Learning about electricity!

Today we were excited to get a postcard from Great Grandma and Great Grandad and also a very exciting-looking parcel from Grandma. We are waiting to open it when Daddy gets home!

The little gecko in our bathroom! (we see lots of these and frogs too!)

We had to push the land cruiser in after it got towed home!

No point crying over spilt milk!

Before I spilt the milk!

 Habari za asubuhi! This is what I say when I see people in the morning! It means "how are you this morning?" I say it to people when I go with Spedito to get the milk from the cows. We walk up the hill and in the wooden gate and see the three cows and the little calf. Every morning we get a jug of milk. On the way home sometimes we find an avocado for mum from the tree by the path. And sometimes Spedito carries me on his shoulders. It wasn’t good this morning when I dropped the milk when I got home and it spilled all over the front steps! It was a disaster and we didn’t have much milk today.




Fun in the garden!

  






Today I made chapattis with Mama Lucy for our dinner. I love chapattis! We don’t have a rolling pin so I have to use a jar! Today I got very, very dirty bouncing on a space hopper outside with Amisadai. We were playing mums and dads.

 

Ninapika pa moja na Mama Lucy

I also look after my tortoises. We lost one last week, but Spedito found him again. They like to eat lettuce and cucumber. I like cucumber too and I have planted lots of cucumber seeds in my garden so I can eat them too! I am growing green beans too!



Gardening with Spedito!



Melchizedek and Zacchaeus



See the Swahili page for my new word!

Visiting Villages and Canadian Thanksgiving

Last week we went to three villages. Uhambingeto, Mafinga and Kidabaga. In Uhambingeto we went to a school and saw the head teacher's office. They have big tanks to collect water. In Mafinga there is a biblia shule (Bible School). We had lunch at someone's house. The house had no carpet. The chairs and tables had pretty cloths on.

In Kidabaga we went to church. It had a very red dirt floor and didn't have windows. We sat on long thin benches. There was lots of fun dancing. We had rice and beans for lunch - there was a chicken and lots of chicks eating the food off the floor!


Kidabaga Church (can you find us?)

On Saturday, I (Amisadai) bought a kanga at the market. It is yellow and pretty. We bought a pumpkin on Saturday for our Thanksgiving Party. We made pumpkin pie and made an Angel Delight Chocolate Pudding that Mummy brought from England for a treat! Ben and Sam slept in the new bunk beds Daddy put up.


Thanksgiving Dinner with the Wingfields



Swahili words! (I got my own dictionary on Saturday so now I can learn lots of words) You can find them on the other page!

Paw-paw and Batiks

Here is a photo of us with our first papaya. Woolly is one of our dogs.

We went to see how the ladies make batiks. They use stencils and hot wax and then dye the cloth. They are very pretty.

We have a new house!

At Bagamoya near Dar-es-Salaam

We are now living in our new house in Iringa! We drove here through a safari park and we saw giraffes, zebras, elephants, antelopes, buffulo, warthogs and baboons. It was very exciting. Now we are in our house. I (Amisadai) have a rainbow duvet and mosquito net! We found a dolls house and children's magazines left from the people who lived here before. We have a big area outside with four dogs (Woolly, Waffi, Wuki and Lily) and four rabbits (we will give two to Ben and Sam). We pick cabbage from our garden to feed them. My rabbit is called Mousey. We have chickens and ducks got our first egg yesterday! We have two tortoises which we call Melchizedek (because he is old) and Zaccheus (because he is small). We have a papaya tree in our garden. Daddy tried to climb the tree to pick one and the branch broke! We have been making coffee. Our friends grow coffee beans and you have to soak the beans, shell them, dry them, shell them again and roast them and grind them. It takes a very long time. We went shopping in the market - it is not a bit like Sainsbury's! Lots of little tiny stalls in a big barn with lots of pineapples, coconuts, oranges and also baskets, and kangas.

Outside our new house

I got malaria in Dar-es-Salaam and had to go to the hospital which wasn't fun. I went to the clinic in Iringa to check my blood and I am all better!

I lost my tooth last night. There is a tooth fairy in Tanzania and I got 1000 shillings! Now I have lost one tooth in Canada, one in England and one in Tanzania!

On the way to our new house!

Our new Swahili word is nyambani!

Fun with our Family!

We have been busy having fun and packing up! We had a sleepover at Grandma and Grandad's house with our cousins, Imogen and Elle!

Lost in the woods!

We went to visit Great Grandma and Great Grandad at the seaside.

We went to stay at Great Auntie Philly and Great Uncle Alec's house and had fun at the park and doing our nails with Kate.

We don't have any beds now. And today we had our first malaria tablets! We swallowed them easily and we didn't even taste them. We are going to eat lots of marmite sandwiches to keep the mozzies away.

Louisa has no bed!

Amisadai has no bed!

We are looking forward to being in Tanzania. We are excited that we will have two tortoises!

Our Swahili word today is kitanda!

Our Farewell Picnic

Today we had a picnic at the park with lots of our friends from school and playschool! We played and had lots of fun together. Lots of people have now signed our autograph book and we have lots of addresses and emails for all our pen pals! Thanks for coming all of you! It was fun! We will miss you all lots, but are looking forward to writing to you!  The Swahili word today is ndugu!