Our 1st Krismasi

Our Krismasi was certainly a bit different this year. We find we are slowly but surely being taken over by all things baby and small child. We definitely missed being with our family back home, especially this year, but having Anna around certainly made the day extra special and eye opening when you think about what it is we celebrate on this day - God come to earth as a baby.

We got lots of exciting zawadi's (gifts) through the post (mostly for Anna who didn't have the foggiest what was going on and why mummy and daddy were acting so strangely and propping her up to take pictures of her 'opening' presents...), we read the Christmas story together, had an enormous roast chicken dinner with Christmas pud, went to the beach and then watched 'The A-Team' in bed with the A/C pumping in the evening. All in all a good day :)

Stocking ready and waiting!

Zawadi heaven!

Princess dress up now comes in baby size! Completely ridiculous but gorgeous all the same!! (It's Cinderella just in case you can't tell!)

We hope that you all had a Happy Christmas wherever you were, whether you were where you were supposed to be or not!

Following in Daddy's Footsteps.

Paula's Piki Piki Lesson

I always fancied having a Vespa and zooming around town on it but it never really seemed appropriate for our needs before. Here everyone gets around on 'piki piki's' (used generally for any kind of bike with an engine). Got a family of 5? No worries! Need to transport your new car windscreen? No problem! (Seriously, we have seen both these and lots more.)

Our school was recently given a couple of piki piki's from Germany and after bringing one home today, Rich decided I should have a lesson. Obviously since I was refused a license on account of my gender, I was limited to riding round and round our house. However, if I may say so myself, I got quite good at this particular route and as you can see from the smile, I rather enjoyed myself!

(Now all I have to do is convince Rich that I should have one :))

Making friends

Since arriving back, we have gradually been trying to visit all our old neighbours and friends. A good friend of Rich's and his wife had their sixth child in August while we were back in England so we went to visit them and meet their new baby. Although almost two months older than Anna, as you can see from the photo there really isn't much difference in size and everyone tells us what a big baby she is. (The women are all very impressed when I tell them I delivered a 4.5Kg baby!!)

It really seems that having a baby here in this culture is the key to getting to know people and making friends. They LOVE babies here and everywhere I go, after being asked 'mtoto hajambo?' (basically 'your baby's OK?') Anna is whisked away to been shown to someone else who may or may not be in the same room/house/street!! For the most part Anna does brilliantly and smiles at everyone, listens to them babble away at her in a new (to her) language and just watches what is going on.

Learner Drivers

We all love to hate them. They are overly cautious and drive exactly on or just below the speed limit, they are afraid of the edge of the road and still feed the steering wheel through their hands. But we've all been there and done it ourselves. I am referring of course to learner drivers.

It seems like it is possible for anyone here to start up a diving school, and that is exactly what people have been doing. All you need is a car and a big bit of wood to stick on top with your big red 'L' painted on it, and you're away. It seems that 'aerodynamic' was not part of the design brief when making up these signs and as we were driving behind this car the other day I just felt I had to capture the moment and share it with you all.

I don't know what happens when there are strong winds... maybe the lesson is cancelled??

Learning to Swim Part 2.

As it is yet again the weekend, we headed to a local hotel yesterday for Anna to have her next swimming lesson. (Contrary to what it may seem like from this blog at the moment, we don't spend all our time swimming in crystal clear seas and lounging under palm trees next to swimming pools!)

Anna making use of her new sun tent and having a snooze by the pool.

Smiling at Dad - 'maybe this swimming malarky's not so bad after all...'

Drying off in her new beach robe.

Posted at the risk of having two sets of grandparents arriving in order to take Anna away from her unfit parents!

Back to Shule

On Thursday Anna and I headed to Roxanne's house to visit the kids from Shule. Apparently before we arrived they were super excited to meet Anna but when we got there they came over all shy. They loved showing off all the English they have learnt and singing some new songs, including 'The Wheels on the Bus' and a song about the days of the week.

Anna enjoyed the whole experience so much she fell asleep (No mean feat when you hear how much noise these kids can make!!).

It was great to see and hear how much progress these children have made over the last four and a half months. Most importantly, they now know how to ask their teacher for candy in English!!