Dancing queens!

The girls love to dance, especially if it involves costumes.  Even Mercy loves to join in and puts many clothing items on her head until someone helps her put something on! 

Recently the girls did some "cultural dancing," complete with traditional clothing of course!  Here is a link to a video of their dancing.  About 3/4 of the way through you can see Abrehet (our neighbor, friend, and helper) laughing in the background.  She thought it was so funny to see them dancing!

Here's the link:  http://youtu.be/tYH_EmkwoTA

Enjoy!

Lions and cheetahs and hyenas, oh my!

This past weekend we joined up with the Bingham Academy homeschool group for a field trip!  The homeschool group provides support and resources to families in Ethiopia who homeschool their children.  We will have access to their library (books, puzzles, movies, games) and resource room (workbooks, textbooks, materials of all kinds), which will be a great way to supplement what we already have!  We can check out 75 items at a time from the library, and an unlimited number of items from the homeschool resource room!  And, we get to keep them for around 4 months (since some families who live in rural areas don't come to Addis very often).

The field trip this weekend was to Bethel Pottery, where women who need shelter are taught a marketable skill and are able to gain confidence, independence, and purpose.  They learn to make beautiful pottery and weave scarves.  Each child on the field trip was able to spin their own clay creation on the pottery wheel!  Charlotte made a little pot, and we'll be able to pick it up in a few weeks after it has been fired in the kiln.  

One of the other neat things about the homeschool group is meeting other kids and families who homeschool, thus providing a good social support group.  Charlotte was happy to play with several new friends her age, including two 7 year old girls, both named Anna!  :)

After the pottery making and a picnic in the eucalyptus forest, we drove to Born Free, a wildlife sanctuary and rehabilitation center.  Here they take care of animals who have been in captivity but now need a new place to live.  Currently they house several cheetahs, lions, leopards, hyenas, baboons, various monkeys, and tortoises.  Many of them came from individuals or families who thought it would be fun to have a pet cheetah or lion, until the cute and cuddly baby kitty turned into a wild animal.  Others came from zoos, hotels, and money-making schemes to show off captive wild animals.  Born Free works toward setting the animals free if possible, in a location where they will thrive.  Some of the animals will never survive in the wild, so they live at Born Free for the remainder of their life, but others are rehabilitated and then released.  The animals are fed by the caretakers everyday, but the ones who will be released are taught to hunt live prey before they must fend for themselves.

The Born Free Foundation was started because of a book and movie written in the 1950s about a lion named Elsa who was raised in captivity, then returned to the wild.  Charlotte loves the movie and the story, so it was really fun to take her to this Born Free location and see it in action!  The animals all had beautiful living spaces which were really large and natural.

 Charlotte (and her friend Vivienne) enjoying one of the cheetahs.

 Mercy was like a wild animal herself during this trip.  She was so excited to see the animals she could hardly be held!  She loved growling at all of the big cats!

 There was this very strange line of gray fuzzy caterpillars inching along.  There were perhaps 50 of them in this line!

 Cool day to be a kid.

 Mercy growling at one of the lions.  He was so polite to lay right next to the fence so we could easily look at him!

 It did our hearts good to get out of Addis for the day and enjoy the countryside.

Strangely enough, the companion for this hyena is a large dog.  Apparently, hyenas do not like to be alone, but Born Free didn't really want to accumulate any more hyenas.  Someone offered this very large dog, who had bitten a person and was slated to be put down, to be the hyena's companion.  Surprisingly they get along great!

 This vervet monkey was rehabilitated and released, but continues to hang around Born Free.

 This Mercy monkey got hungry and since we were hiking around the woods/grassland the whole time, there wasn't a chance for me to nurse her.  So, we just did what we had to do and had a little lunch on the go.  Matt called it fast food....  :)

 This pile of dirt really is this orange!  They mix it in with concrete to make yellow-orange cement for flooring!

 The Florek family.

We love you all.

Fall Fest!

 Four Ethiopian princesses ready for a fun night!

 Trick-or-Treat!

The men dressed in a strange combination of traditional Oromo garb as well as kingly crowns and swimming goggles... because you just never know...

 Craft time!

 All the girls took a turn at whacking the pinata!  A pinata on Halloween?  Why not?

 Who likes candy?!

 Even the patio was dressed up for the occasion

 The Floreks are starting to make a name for themselves with their famously delicious pumpkin doughnut holes!

 Yum, Kenyan hot dogs. 'Minimum 65% meat' says the package.  :) count me IN!

Who sent us marshmallows from the U.S.?!  THANK YOU!

Happy Fall!

What a crazy holiday!

 Charlotte gets ready for the evening by wearing Grandma CarolAnn's scarf, which, of course, immediately transforms her into a princess!

 The girls begin the night with a little dancing, Ethiopia style!

 Then the knives came out!  We had great fun with our upstairs neighbors.

 I am the (candy corn) Walrus! Goo goo ga choo!

 Cheeeeeeeeese!

 Trying to copy the face of their pumpkins!

Happy Halloween!
We had a fun time trying to explain to our Ethiopian friends what kind of crazy American "holiday" this Halloween is!  Let me get this straight... its a holiday that nobody really understands the meaning of anymore, you cut a cartoon-y face into a vegetable, dress up in crazy outfits and knock on doors asking for candy?!  Crazy Americans!  :) Happy Halloween!

Recently...

We've been taking a lot of pictures!  Here are some from this past week!

 Charlotte playing with her friends in the mud pit.  

 Matt playing with his friends in the mud pit.  Er, I mean, the soccer field.  But when they played for 3 hours in the rain, you would have thought they were playing in the mud pit by the look of their clothes!

 Not to be outdone, the kiddos took their turn at playing soccer a couple days later, without the rain.

 Charlotte the gymnast and her friends!

 

Charlotte finally got a much-needed haircut.  It was so long and tangly; she hated having it brushed and it was always getting food in it!

 

  Now it's a little longer than shoulder-length with some layers in it (my first ever attempt at layering!).  She looks so much nicer, if I do say so myself!

 Charlotte playing dentist.  She said things like, "Those are all of my concerns.  What are your concerns?"  and "I would recommend brushing two times a day."  and "I have been cleaning teeth for a long time, 67 years.  My patients love me.  I am very kind and very gentle." and "You don't have to pay me.  I have been doing this for so long that I have lots of money, so you don't have to pay."  

 More dentistry.

 Some acrobatics.

 Roasting the marshmallows that Grandma Cindy sent to us!!!  It's lots of fun to have a fire in the fireplace, and even more fun to have marshmallows!  Especially when the power is out...

 Mercy LOVES to look at a picture of a dog sticking its tongue out that is on the wall near her highchair.  She started copying it last week and will stick out her tongue when you say, "What does a dog do?"

 She also makes a great ham face.  :)

 Skype-ing with Grandpa Mark, Lisa, and Liya!

 Yesterday Charlotte decided to make us breakfast in bed.  She did everything by herself and reprimanded Daddy for getting out of bed to check on her.

She was so proud of her work--two peanut butter and jelly sandwiches on homemade rolls with bananas.

 

After she delivered our food she made herself a sandwich, then climbed into bed with us.

 

 The girls LOVE to play in the sand/mud pit.  This time the mama turtle was being unusually brave and got really close to them.  She got really excited when she saw a container of water (well, as excited as a turtle can get), so I suggested to the girls that maybe she was thirsty and they should give her some water.

Apparently she was quite thirsty, because they spent the next half hour filling and refilling various tea party containers with water while she thirstily slurped them all up.  In the video below, Charlotte whispers "We're saving the day!"