More Butterflies!

The start of the dry season seems to mark the changeover from Giant Ants to butterflies. Here are some pictures from our garden.

walking in nature

 We took another trip out to Born Free, this time we took a picnic and went for a walk around the nature reserve. We saw many caterpillars and butterflies and Tommy managed to photograph a few. We also saw a few deer, but they moved too fast for photographing.

Ethiopia is the 8th hungriest country

This week the Global Hunger Index 2013 was published (full report can be accessed here).

The global hunger scores were calculated by looking at the percentage of the population that is undernourished, children younger than five who are underweight, and the percentage of children dying before the age of five.

Class of 2013 Legacy

Last years Grade 12 class made this scoreboard for our sports field before they left. 

It is now up in place ready for action.

al fresco dining

The rains seem to have finally finished and the days are now full of beautiful sunshine. We've been enjoying doing some painting in the garden this week and eating outside in our little garden.

thank goodness for new shoes

When we lived on the ship we found that ship life was hard on kids shoes, it seems that living in Ethiopia is not much better! These rather revolting specimens were bought in the UK in January, this is what they look like 7 months on!

the fans are ready, let's hope the players are!

Judging by the number of Ethiopian soccer shirts walking around town and the difficulty we had getting to church this morning, I think it is safe to say the locals are pretty excited about the match happening this afternoon.

Soddo Christian Hospital

Soddo Christian Hospital is about 200 miles out of Addis. Some of our home school families are working down that way. They have a blog which is worth a look to see some different work being done in Ethiopia. Their latest post is sadly reporting an outbreak of measles in the area, other recent posts are about the kinds of medications they are able to stock at a rural mission hospital and a lady who had quadruplets!

Check it out at:  http://www.soddo.org/the-blog/

learning comes alive week: sports fun

 The elementary kids LOVED the sports day fun this week. They had races with skipping ropes, bean-bags and running with cups of water to fill their teams buckets....

learning comes alive week: viking day

 This week was activities week, all the big kids went away and all the small kids got to experience 'learning comes alive' week, Tuesday was Viking Day for Tom's grade, then the boys have had arts and crafts day, science day and sports day. It has been a lot of fun, and just what they needed right before the school break.

Here Tom is dressed for Viking day - his artwork behind him is the red dragon.

school photos

what fine looking boys :-)

Mount Entoto National Park

 After seeing the more cultural side of Entoto on our previous visit, we had fun exploring some of the greener side over the Meskel holiday weekend with some friends.

 We stopped by a small waterfall for the kids to play.

Check out our new web-site!

You can find it at www.binghamacademy.net

If there is anything you'd like to see on there let us know and we can pass on any ideas, but we hope you agree that it is looking good (Thanks Krisha). 

There is a link on there to a reflection from Chelsea, one of the student teachers we had with us last year. You can also click here to read it.

8 months

8 months brought moving backwards and frustration at being unable to move forwards. It does mean Lily frequently gets stuck under the bed and needs rescuing but otherwise she is not too much trouble still!

crazy hat day

 Tom with a lego football pitch hat, Josh with an actual football as a hat

Entoto Maryam Church and Emperor Meneliks Palace

The entrance to Entoto Maryam Church: within the grounds of the large Orthodox church there is a museum with many historical artifacts (plus some random Olympic medals that have been donated by Ethiopian sports champions) and the old Presidential palace. Entoto was the capital of Ethiopia prior to the establishment of Addis Ababa.

Kiddus Raguel and Kiddus Elias Churches, Mount Entoto

 During the rainy season we headed up to Entoto National Park and stopped at the churches on the way.