Tired out and an Angel by Louisa

Tired out from biking!

We had a fun time at Kisolanza last week! Amisadai and I took our bikes and had a great time riding all around! We had fun with Andy and Angela. I got so tired! And dinner was so late it was past my bedtime! I even fell asleep before the pudding came!

Tired out from eating. I missed the chocolate pudding :(

This week we had our Christmas Service with the international church. I was the angel, Gabriel and Amisadai was a narrating sheep. Amisadai played the violin for the carols with a flute, clarinet, cello and piano.



We found a chameleon on a rock



What a smile!



Hanukkah in Tanzania

Hanukkah

By Amisadai

Hanukkah is a Festival of Light. Jewish people celebrate Hanukkah. It is in early December and lasts 8 days.

The Jews are celebrating the miracle of the oil in the temple in 165 BC. After winning the battle against the Syrians and Greeks, the Jews took back the temple and wanted to rededicate it to God. But there was only enough oil to last one day. It was a miracle that God made it last for eight days.  So today, Jews, to remember those 8 days light a Menorah. They light 9 candles.

People today play a game called “Dreidl.” This is a game that is played with a spinning top which has nine sides and four sides have a Hebrew word on. SHIN means “put one in,” HEY means “take half,” GIMEL  means “take everything,” and NUN means “do nothing.”  Each player starts with ten “gelt” (money or sweets) and the winner is the one who wins all the gelt.

At Hanukkah people eat fried food like doughnuts, Hamantashen (which are small biscuits with jam in the middle) and fried potato cakes called latkes. They eat fried foods because they are remembering the miracle of the oil.

 We celebrated Hanukkah this year. It was fun!

Food (L to R) Latkes, jam donuts, hamentashen biscuits.
Louisa made the menorah. We are holding our dreidls.

Making Mud Houses and A Shadow Play

When we were in Magozi last week, we were working on our neighbours house. Everyone is getting their houses ready for the rains, putting more straw and mud on the roof, or batty (which is a tin roof). We were helping on the walls. It is really fun and very dirty throwing the mud on the side of the house.

When we got back to Iringa, we had Thanksgiving! After dinner, we did our Shadow Puppet show "The Story of Kuang-li" for Andy and Angela and Marc. Watch it here!



And Advent has started! Every day we do our big advent calendar and read from our special advent book. We drew 25 lines on a candle which we light every night. We are making an advent candle wreath. We have made some light window decorations as well. And the best thing about Dec 1st was a big surprise of lots of Christmas parcels at the post office! We couldn't even carry them all!

All the bunnies are well.

The Spinning Earth

The Bunnies are big now. We have made up our minds that we keep Twich and Maisy. Mummy's favroute bunny is called "Fluffy." We still cannot tell if Lulu is pregnant yet. Livingstone is realy big now and getting heavier to carry. He loves us and cuddles us.

We have been learning about the spinning of the earth as it goes around the sun. We got a bit dizzy learning this. When it is 12 noon in Tanzania, it is 9am in England. And do you know in B.C. Canada, when we are awake in the daytime (because we are facing the sun), you are all sleeping in the nightime (because you are facing away from the sun). We are on the opposite sides of the earth so when it is 7am for us, it is 8pm the day before in B.C! What time is it in Australia?

What time is it where you are?

We have made a Chinese Shadow Puppet Play. It is a Quest Myth about Kuang-li. We are going to try and put a video of it online so you can watch it too!

The Tale of Kuang-li

Poppies

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

by John McCrae, May 1915

Shadow Hands and Wiggling Bottoms

  More fun with shadows! What do you think we are making? We tried birds, butterflies, ducks, frogs on logs, geese...

 

We weren't too keen to get too close just in case ...

Here we are at the stadium in Iringa celebrating 50 years of independence for Tanzania! There were lots of people and parades and dances where they wiggle their bottoms! There were lots of stalls, and at one we found a real monkey and a scary looking lion which was just skin. 

See if you can do the dance at home, just ask someone to bang a drum for you. Louisa is pretty good!

News from Iringa

The rains have started in Iringa! We love dancing in the rain. We jump in the puddles! The rain tanks can all fill up now!

Today Mr Pig left because he had been sold. We don't know if Lulu is pregnant yet though. Mr Pigh squealed a lot. We don't think he wanted to go!

Goodbye, Mr. Pig

Today at the ICF (English-speaking) church meeting, the Sunday School did a presentation about the whole story of the Bible. We sang two songs and all had readings.

The Sunday School banner

Did you know than Prince Charles is here in Tanzania now?

We love our bunnies!
Louisa fell and hurt her chin and cheek!