Bingham Champions

Last week Bingham students competed against other schools in Addis and a few International schools from further afield in an athletics track meet. And we won! (and some of the other schools are significantly bigger, with bigger budgets and paid coaches!)

Final points below, photos etc linked from http://www.icsaddis.edu.et/page/ics-international-and-issaaa-track-meet

1 Bingham Academy                    BA              690  
2 International Community School     ICS             600  
3 American International School      AISR            245  
4 Sandford International School      SFD             179  
5 St Joseph School                   STJO            144  
6 American School Mozambique         AISM            110  
7 Khartoum International School      KICS             81  
8 German School                      GER              66  
9 Andinet International School       AIS              23

Well done Bingham!

Daily Ethiopia

I just discovered this website with Ethiopian news - todays story - an Ethiopian 'Miracle Man' setting a world record for the longest distance travelled in one minute while balanced on crutches. Good pic if you have time to look!!

http://dailyethiopia.com/index.php?aid=1384

shopping with a screaming baby

Shopping with Lily is interesting. Until today she's been pretty co-operative at sleeping while I shop and today I learned what a blessing that has been.

There are some great things about living here - even without a baby in tow someone takes your shopping out of your trolley for you, packs it all up and carries it to your car all for a small tip. This was such a blessing while pregnant I can tell you. Last week I got to the check-out with Lily asleep in her sling and a man rushes to bring me a seat so I got to sit down while he packed my shopping, slightly embarrassing, but I think an idea that could catch on among tired Mums everywhere!

Today, Lily decided that she would exercise her lungs in the supermarket. I should mention at this point that the locals get quite stressed about her crying, which makes having an unsettled or colicy baby quite stressful even at home or in the school grounds. And while being very caring, the shop assistants made the whole thing pretty stressful. To be honest I have learned to ignore a certain amount of crying- assuming Lily is fed and clean, sometimes life just has to continue. Which is difficult when by the first aisle someone brings me a chair, which I politely declined, by the second aisle I had about ten members of staff either waving keys at her, asking me something about her or just staring at me like I had two heads and by the third aisle one of them decided they would come with me around the rest of the shop pushing my trolley. By which point I really couldn't concentrate so besides stopping for toilet rolls I figured we could manage without anything else and headed for the checkouts!

Next stop - our fruit and veg man, where the crying started again and every passing person had an opinion about Lily that they wished to share, 99% thought that she should be fed, which I guess people might suggest back home too if a baby cries. Although rather than asking if she is hungry they are fairly insistent here that she should be breast fed on the spot even if you say she has just been fed and use a lot of gestures to tell me so which make me smile. One woman asked if she could take her home, so we had a bit of a laugh about that as I questioned whether she really wanted that noise to go home with her. 

So here is to hoping she sleeps next time as if she makes this a habit I'll run out of food in a few weeks...

class parties

The boys classes have parties every couple of months to celebrate good behaviour, or performing the class play well or some other reason for a bit of fun and a lot of sugar...

 K2 had an ice cream and cake party a couple of weeks ago which was pretty exciting!

Josh with the boys in the sandpit.This was before they all started putting their hands in the way and saying no pictures!!

suited up

This is the grade 12 class (year 13 or upper sixth in the UK) with Tommy when they decided to all wear suits to school. They will be taking their exams in a few weeks time so please be praying with us for them as they prepare. After their exams they are going on a trip to Turkey together before they head off to different countries for university. Many of them have lived in Ethiopia a long time so please continue praying for them as they transition from here.

three little monkeys

Our little monkeys - the first when the boys were just meeting Lily and the second when she is about 7 weeks.

small rains

While the UK averaged 2.5 degrees Celcius in March, here in Addis we have been enjoying plenty of sunshine, my thermometer usually reads around 22 degrees which is perfect!!

This time of year brings a few weeks of 'small' rains, just short periods of rain often later in the day, opposed to the proper rainy season when it can rain for hours.

Last night we had a spectacular storm, we had water all around our bedroom floor as there was so much on the balcony it came under the door, Tom was huddled on the sofa with me waiting for the power to go off, which it frequently does, but actually didn't this time.

 There were leaves everywhere this morning...

...and piles of HAIL!!! That the kids were throwing at each other...I guess the closest thing you'll get to a snowball fight in Africa!!