Happy 7th Birthday, Anderson

Anderson already got to celebrate last Friday when he had his sleepover birthday party.

Following a theme there were soccer matches

and a soccer piñata (thanks, Magnus, for the creative genius and for Tierney’s forethought in getting it ahead of time).

There were also several rounds of Bulldog (variation of tag).  I highly recommend keeping a couple of very helpful 10 year olds around to help with birthday parties and sleepovers. 

And a baby bird that fell out of it’s nest (that we were able to put back in)

And different than the birds we found in a nest earlier that day

Camp Anderson:  kids slept from 9:15pm until 6:00am. I think that’s the best we could have hoped for (especially since it was the first sleepover for 2 of them)

Morning movie until mom was able to have a cup of coffee

Then the monster showed up

All made for a very happy little boy

Saturday morning the girls and I had to leave before all the kids got picked up because Ashlyn had a swim meet.  She competed in the <10 freestyle and medley relays.  They got 2nd place in each and ISM won the overall competition.  Fun for all, but even better when you get to be on the same team as your best friend. 

Today Anderson is bringing cupcakes to school.  Yesterday he
got to bring home Floppy, so Floppy helped us. 

^{(Floppy is the P2 class pet that goes home with a different student each night and then they write about what they did with him)}

Happy Birthday 7th Birthday, Anderson!

Jackal

A few years ago the running track at TGT was closed due to an “incident with wildlife”.  At the time this was just a curiosity for me, but this week that event was brought back to mind when I was out for a morning run and came across this beautiful jackal. 

I really wasn’t scared, but maybe a tad intimidated. I was certainly missing my running partner (who left me to move to Malawi – geez). 

This side-striped jackal was just trotting along in front of me and would occasionally stop and turn around to look at me. It didn’t seem menacing…more like “hey, you still following me?”.  Still enough to make me stop until he started going again and eventually trotted off. 

Fun way to start with morning. 

Lake Eyasi for Lucy’s 7th Birthday

We had decided that since we didn’t go out to the Serengeti with Parry and Molly that it would be fun to meet up with them at Lake Eyasi for the last night of their safari to see the Hadza.  We love it here and it’s one of the best campsites ever, so our plan was to do the same thing we did at this same time last year with Webb and Jeff where we camped while they stayed in the tented lodge at Kisima Ngeda. 

It wouldn’t be a Tanzanian car trip without some unforeseen adventure.  Flooded road.  But we just waited an hour and had a tailgate lunch (very different than my tailgating at Bills games back in the day) while we waited for the water to subside a bit, and we were on our way again.  

Life just got a whole lot more difficult for these folks

View from our car of the vehicle behind us that also decided now was a good time.

We had dinner at the lodge that night and on our walk back to our campsite much of our path was lit by fireflies.  Anderson even caught one. And then we used our headlamps to find all the bush babies in the trees around the campsite. The next day was Lucy’s 7th birthday and we were so excited that we got to celebrate it with her Tanzania style.

It was only an overnight trip, so we all decided that the boys would do the early morning hunting trip and the girls would meet up with them after we had a civilized breakfast and a cup of coffee.  Anderson and Matt got picked up about 5:20 in the morning and the girls and I slept until 7 after a hard rain the night before.  We quickly noticed some pretty large paw prints next to our tent in the mud.  Hyena.  Right next to our tent.  We had no idea.  How cool is that?  Our first camping trip here (almost five years ago!) we did have a hyena walk right through camp while we were eating breakfast, but we hadn’t seen them here since. 

This is how we found Anderson a couple of hours later.  This boy was in his element.  They caught some birds, ate some honey, and were now back at their camp. 

When we showed up the boys were on to arrow making.

Anderson decided to come help us dig for tubers. 

This little boy was so full of personality

Next we went to visit the Datoga people.  I had always thought that they were just like the maasai because they are both are pastoralists (semi-nomadic and raise cattle), but it turns out the the Datoga are also great blacksmiths and often trade with the Hadza (i.e. honey for arrows).  

Per usual the kids just wanted to play with the baby goats.

But first you had to catch them.

The Datoga Chief

Random sightings on the way home

And back in Arusha in time for some birthday cake and presents.  What seven year old girl doesn’t want a set of bow and arrows decorated with baboon fur?

Lucy, we are so excited that you and your family came all this way and celebrate your 7th birthday with us.  We miss you guys already.