How Many Things Can You Use a Khanga For?

I have lots of cool pictures to show you! Since my last blog, lots of things have happened, so I have a lot to tell you!

Yep - it's me!

Over the summer holiday, Kathryn and Arron, our friends from England, came to visit us.


That's us!

We went with them to Tunza beach. I was jumping off the rock making silhouettes in the sunset. Unfortunately one time I jumped off the rock but I landed doing the splits which was painful as you could imagine.

Me jumping over the sunset!



Also while they were here, we (the girls) had a khanga fashion show! A khanga is a piece of colourful cloth with pretty patterns and also a Swahili proverb written on it.

A traditional Tanzanian khanga

Do you know that khangas have so many uses?

CAN YOU LIST SOME WAYS TO USE A KHANGA?

See how many ways you can think of and post them in the comments! Watch the next blog post and we can see how many uses there are!

Khanga try-ons

Khanga Fashion

We also had other visitors, Julian and David come to stay. With them we went to the Serengeti which was amazing! We saw everything except lions which was unusual. We were really excited to see a mother cheetah with her cubs. They were so cute!

Can you see the four cubs?

We stayed overnight at a place called Serengeti Stop-over. On the front of the door of the banda there is a picture of an animal. Amisadai and I were standing outside the door with our new Serengeti T-shirts, trying to be the animal that was on the door!

Pretty fierce

But we can also be sort of normal!

... and crazy

On the way home from the Serengeti, we stopped off on the side of the road for picnic lunch....



 



...and the cows wanted to join us!



 Here are some more random photos from our summer holiday...

Amisadai's feet are normally really dirty

Boat out to Saanane Island

Another Jumping Rock photo from Saanane!

Looking for monitor lizards with Arron

Our family relaaaaaaaaaaaxxxxing

 

Crossing the crocodile and hippo river in the Serengeti
(not good for people like me who don't like heights)

That's all from me!

Don't forget to think about what you can use a khanga for (and there's one clue in the picnic photo!)

And CLICK HERE for the answers to Amisadai's Bee Quiz!


Serengeti to Home (Part 3)

Waking up on Day 4 to the sunrise of the Serengeti, we all washed, dressed and ate, and we were soon on our way back through the Serengeti again. On our last game drive we saw more and more animals, including a very well camouflaged leopard! We drove through a huge herd of zebras and wildebeest and made our way back to the Serengeti gate. We quickly stopped for lunch before returning home to Mwanza, full of happy memories … and looking forward to seeing our families again!

We had a lot of fun during the trip! It was funny when someone’s hat blew off his head, out the open-top roof and landed on the road behind us. The car behind picked it up for us! We had a lot of chatter and giggling on the long car journeys. But after many hours on the road with one girl in particular, one boy said that she needed to “talk MODERATELY!” It was fun sleeping in tents but the food wasn’t as good as home food. I enjoyed a chance to be with different friends. I loved seeing all the animals and the new beautiful landscapes. I can’t wait to take my family there!

Tenting Fun

So, as you can see it was a good, educational and very fun trip! I hope you have learnt something too about Ngorongoro Crater and Oldupai Gorge and can picture the wonderful time we had there.

Glossary

Fossil: a bone that has been preserved for a long period of time.

Ngorongoro: the sound of the cow and donkey bells as they walk down into the crater.

Serengeti: this word comes from the Masai word “Serengiti” which means “endless plains”.

Oldupai: a word from the Masai language for a certain plant called Sisal which grows plentifully in and around Oldupai Gorge. It is used by the Masai to make ropes, baskets and mats. Cows chew it when there is little water around as the plant absorbs water. It is also used in medicine as it is a painkiller.

Sisal

Total List of Animals Seen

Elephant

Giraffe

Impala

Thompson’s gazelle

Topi

Black rhino

Cheetah

Lion

Leopard

Warthog

Hyenas

Wildebeest

Buffalo

Ostrich

Dik dik

Zebra

Vultures

Guinea fowl

Baboon

Monkey

Jackal

 

Stuck in the Serengeti (by Louisa)

We got stuck in black cotton soil in the middle of the plains of the Serengeti! There were prides of lions, and the fastest animal in the world, cheetahs ... and we were stuck in the mud.


Sand lollies in the Serengeti

Last week, I went to the Serengeti with Samuel and Megan and Daddy. We saw four cheetahs, two elephants, maybe 25 giraffes, four lions, and a hyena. We also saw lots of zebra, impala, topi, crocodiles and hippos, a jackal and ostriches.

After lunch, our guide took us on an adventure!! We went off the track onto the soggy ground. Can you guess what happened? I bet you can. We got stuck! Actually, it was our guide’s car that got stuck more than ours. We used our winch for the first time to try and pull him out. The first time he was stuck we managed to free him, but the second time he was really bogged down and when we tried, even though our car was on solid ground, the winch started to move our car towards his. Oh dear! I looked around, but fortunately there were no lions – they had not spotted us and we did not become their dinner! I was a bit worried it was going to get dark and we would be stuck in the middle of the nowhere. After two hours of trying, as it was getting late we had to take him and his guests in our car to get help. Thankfully the rangers were able to rescue his car. And we arrived at Serengeti Stopover for the night.

Trying to pull their vehicle out!

 

Going Shopping on a Daladala (by Louisa)

Today my family and I went shopping. Our car has a problem with the brakes so ...

We went on a daladala. Now, daladalas are a little bit scary and very crowded but quite fun too. On the way when Amisadai and Mummy had jumped off, many big ladies piled in. One lady was sitting next to me or should I say sitting on me! I was squished on the edge of the seat because she put her massive handbag (like a suitcase) behind my back! There were lots of crying babies, a lady singing and loads of boxes.

On the daladala

Coming into town on our daladala

We went to the Post Office and found a treat waiting for us in a package from James and Dan! We were very excited to get chocolate because we haven't had any since we left England! The lady in the Post Office said she wanted my sunglasses! It was very busy in town. The Chadema party (a political party) and lots of teenagers were marching all over the roads making lots of traffic jams and there were soldiers and policemen everywhere.

On the way home we counted 25 people and lots of cabbages in the 15-seater daladala. It was VERY squishy! I got a very hot bottom sitting on the floor over the engine. When we got to our road, I shouted "Hapa Hapa!" but he didn't hear and carried on. We had to shout louder to get off.

Going to Kayenze
Yesterday we went to the village of Kayenze to go to the church there. We were gone all day! Here are some photos we took!

I am holding baby Annis, our friend Anna's new sister.
We went to see Pastor Amon's family in their home after church

Amisadai is helping me climb out of the mango tree.
The man on the motorbike was laughing at us!
There were lots of kids under the mango tree and we
were doing Bible verses and teaching English!

We had some cows with scary horns come towards us on the road home.
I thought this one would scrape our car with his horns.

Going Camping
Last week my family and I went camping for two nights! One day we decided to climb Balili Hill. On the way up, Amisadai and I found a rock that was shaped like a couch! We had a rest before we carried on climbing.


Resting on our "couch"



We saw lots of baboons with their big, bare bums! They really should wear knickers! This one was running around the playground!

Bare-bum baboon

We had lots of fun riding our bikes and playing on the playground there. Here are some photos!

 

 



We had lots of washing to do after camping.
Here I am wearing all the pegs after collecting it all off the line!

 

A Trip to Narnia and the Serengeti

Welcome to NARNIA! Last Saturday, I had my birthday party! It was a Narnian theme (because I love all the Narnia books) and we had so much fun! We played "Turned to stone" (similar to wink murderer), The Last Battle, (Capture the Flag) and we did the Narnia Quest (a treasure hunt!). We ate Narnian food, such as Beaver's dam (breadsticks), Witch's Temptations (cakes) Mr Tumnus' Sugar cakes, Susan's horns (bugles) Tarkaan's Wine (rosella) Eustace's cheese sandwiches, Aslan's fruit and Lucy's cordial. (I planned it all out when we were waiting so long for Dad and Louisa to come across on the ferry coming back from Uganda!) Mum made me a gorgeous wardrobe cake, it was really good! I had so much fun playing with my friends and think they enjoyed it too.

Here is a video of my party!
 

Serengeti Trip

Last week I went to Serengeti for 3 days for our school trip! It was the best school trip I've ever been on and it was so cool!

Day 1
We left school at 10:00 am and got onto 5 safari veicles. I was in car 5 with 5 other people. It is a 2 hour journey to Bunda, and we got a little bored at times. We reached Tembeamara at lunch time and we had lunch at the camp. Afterwards we pitched the tents (all the girls slept in one huge tent) and chose our places. We then climbed  Balili Hill, or Bunda Mountain and reached the top after a little walk. We had sodas at the top! For dinner (after we had climbed down) we had spaghetti bolonaise . After dinner, we had evening activities, we played memory and instructing games. We went to bed at 11:00pm!

Day 2

We woke up early in the morning (after a very long night! Nassra my friend, and I couldn't get to sleep until 4 so we did our homework and read a book!). We had seed rolls for breakfast, packed our lunches and set of to the Serengeti! We arrived at the gate and were met by some monkeys, who actually came to the cars and one even stole Nassra's banana! We had a wonderful day, we had our roof up so we could see out and I got some amazing pictures! We had a close call with some charging elephants! And we were so excited to see a leopard! We saw:

• wilderbeast
• zebra
• bufflo
• heartbeast
• Thomson's gazzele
• topi
• impala
• a smiling jackel
• bat-eared-fox
• elephant
• 2 leopards
• mongoose
• crocodile
• hippo
• tortoise

We got back, had spaghetti again and then told scary stories around a campfire.

 

Day 3

Sadly the night before our tent had proved itself NOT waterproof and it was sinking and soaked. We given the rooms! I slept under the bed with another of my friends, Hanan, and we were very comfy!

We woke in the morning, packed up, had breakfast and went back the way we came. We stopped in a village (as planned) to visit a school there. We saw a huge tilapia fish! We arrived back at school at home time and I was so pleased to see mum and dad again!