Hi everyone, well here we are on the last 2 days of our 3
week holiday time, and I’m finally getting the chance to blog! We have had a
wonderful break, so I’ll tell you a few of the highlights!
1. Our first Camping trip – we tried out our new tents and
mats and went to a forest called Menagasha about an hour away. We went with 2
other families and for the most part had fun! Not so fun when our sleeping mats
went flat due to holes we didn’t know about, and not fun when an hour walk
turned into 3 hours with tired small children, however the rest was great. We
had a campfire, cooked marshmallows, played games, relaxed and felt a million
miles away from the reality of life in Addis – a crowded, busy, polluted 3rd
world city.
2.Oli’s birthday – Dec 21. We gave him a party with 8 of his
friends, most of whom live on compound. He turned 11, and I made a cake in the
shape of the number!!!! Shane designed an “amazing race” around compound and
had 3 teams all competing in challenges involving school people. They had to
paint canvases in the art room, kick soccer goals on the oval, play a computer
game in the lab, count class photos in the admin block, and the piece de
resistance- climb up the rock climbing wall blindfolded! It was lots of fun,
and they all rose to the challenge. Then just our family went out to eat Korean
here because Oli wanted Sushi – I have no idea where he gets that desire
from.....not me that’s for sure!
3. Christmas Day – we joined with 3 families in the
afternoon and some singles on campus and we tried out cooking a whole sheep in
a home-made besser brick oven. Shane and the boys played chefs while the girls
made salads, and it was delicious. The fun part for the kids was seeing the
lamb slaughtered and gutted the day before. They were fascinated by all the
bits and especially loved seeing the stomach emptied of grass (the stench was
something to imagine!!!) then the man
washed it out, then filled it up with all the other innards to take home with
him.......just like a handbag........but a stomach bag!!! They didn’t blink an
eye at the whole process and were happy to eat, what they had played with 3
days earlier when it was alive!!!
4. New Years Eve- after the successful lamb roast the boys
went a step further and bought 2 whole pigs to roast! We had over 100 people
(staff and families and visitors) come and celebrate at school. We made teams
and played games like quoits, bocce, putt putt and throw the Frisbee through
the hoop. All the time we could smell the pig roasting so by 5pm our mouths
were salivating and finally we had a feast – crackling and all. The best pork
I’ve ever had, and the first in 7 months. There was not a vegetarian in the
house that night!! Then we sat around a fire chatting, and singing,
until.......about 9pm when most of us boring oldies and with kids went home to
bed!!
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| Kids learnt a trick - you put flour in your mouth and spit it at a flame and whoa! |
5. Bowling – we discovered there is a bowling alley in town
so we took the kids to try it out. They had free socks for us to put on, shoes
without laces, and only big sizes so Lucy and Max wore their own shoes. They
had bumper lanes, but when max hit it on the end it fell off! Shane was so
strong that when he hit a strike the whole machine froze and had to be fixed,
and we had our own man to record our scores on paper!! It was so funny but
still to this day I swear there was a definite lean to the left of the alley!!
6. Swimming – we lashed out big time and paid a stack to
swim at the Sheraton Hotel. We went for the whole day to get our money’s worth,
and lay on bright yellow lounges it the sun, and swam in the warm pool. The
kids spent 4.5 hours out of 5 in the water and came home burnt, but it was a
great day. Felt like I was in a movie and with the rich and famous.....but then
we drove home and saw the beggars, dirt and grime around us, and felt slightly
guilty for the pleasure we had just experienced.
So now we’re at the end of our holidays. The many
sleep-overs and movie nights will stop for our kids. Back to planning and
homework and an 11 week term that looks busy to say the least. We feel ready
though after relaxing and enjoying Addis.
Chow for now.’N
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