Extracurricular Busyness

We’ve had a busy few weeks around here with school activities. 

It started with the ISMAC Primary Production of Pinocchio.  The entire primary participated in this super fun show.  Grandma Sue was especially lucky. The night performance was on her birthday, so she got a sneak peak over Skype of one of the songs from the kids and some of their friends. 

Tierney had her first cross-country meet this weekend.  She wasn’t too excited about this, but I think she had a good time with her friends. 

The same night as the cross-country meet, Tierney had her final Umoja (piano) recital for the year.  The last one is a big deal with all of the students performing.  Tierney made her debut singing as well!  I don’t think it was planned, but I’m so proud of her for not backing down and for being able to sing and play at the same time. 

Add in some friendly yard soccer matches and the last month has flown by.

Two more weeks of school and then USA here we come!

Camping in Sinya (Enduimet)

We finally found a free couple of days to go camping with our friends Sally and Damian and their two boys (11 and 9). The girls were even able to bring a couple of friends along.  We headed out to a Wildlife Management Area in northern Tanzania – right on the border of Kenya near Sinya village. 

It was an easy drive, albeit a tad dusty.  We picked up a few local maasai on the way…I’m not sure it was any less dusty up top.  I think they were a bit surprised to find out that Sally let Anderson drive.

   

We went for a nice walk to a place where they used to mine the rock to make roads; the pits are now filled with water.  You know you were really dusty when you feel clean after swimming here.  At least I looked clean now. 

    

Anderson and I rode back to camp on the top of the Land Rover.

 

The girls had decided to stay back at camp and do whatever it is that 8-10 year old girls do, so we brought them a present.

 

It’s a giraffe pelvis that came from the same giraffe as this giant skull.  It looks like it might have gotten stuck in the mud.

We had a beautiful campsite with views of both Mt. Meru and Kilimanjaro.

 

Around camp the next day: the girls and the boys were clearly separated.

     

We asked one of the game wardens who happened to be maasai to tell us the story of of the Mbuni (“Ostrich”) Hill on the border with Kenya. He went into great detail about the maasai warrior from a different region that dressed as an ostrich and killed anyone that came near his hill.  The kids were fascinated and are very intent on coming back to go check it out.

We ended our weekend with a short game drive to see if we could find any elephant.  We’d seen a lot of giraffe, gazelle, zebra, and wildebeest, but hadn’t seen an elephant yet.  We were lucky and found a giant tusker. 

 

Another fun weekend in the bush which completely tired out all of the kids.  Success!