Stink bug

 I took these pics recently of this little bug as it strolled up our path. We were told later that it is a stink bug!

This is Lily's little hand to give it some scale, she was actually being gentle, much as it looks like she is about to squash it!

beaches at Bingham

 Last week before our mid-semester break Grade 1 had a beach themed week. 

They learned about sea turtles and they watched the movie Finding Nemo. They studied the Bible story of Jonah and they had a giant whale tent in their classroom which Josh was quite horrified about because it 'actually smelt like the inside of a fish, because Mrs Martin had put a tin of tuna in there' (I am in awe of the creativity, seriously we are so blessed with our boys teachers this year). 

Do goalie gloves really make any difference?

Each year the Grade 4 class work on a science project which is then presented at a science fair. Each child has a board to present their question and how they answered it.

 Toms question was 'Do gloves affect how many goals a goalkeeper concedes?' 

The other classes and later parents were able to visit each board and listen to the students explain their project and answer any questions about it. Tom had recorded goals scored against goalkeepers with and without gloves during break time games. If you want to know the results you'll have to ask him next time you see him :-)

cooking in the dark

Cooking is always a bit of a gamble. Everything has to be made from scratch so lots of our food prep has to be done early in the day, before the boys finish school and home work time starts, and before I have three little people to trip over in the kitchen.

The trouble living in Addis (well one of them!), is the power is unreliable, so you never really know when you are planning something in the oven whether that will be possible or whether the plan is going to have to change.

All was going well yesterday, I'd prepared home made fish-fingers and home made french fries (having introduced a weekly junk food night to try and keep Josh happy). The power was on, I happily put them in the oven, and they got half cooked before the power went off. The trouble with power cuts is you never know how long they will last - there is no predicting whether it will be 20 minutes or 20 hours, so the fish-fingers and fries got transferred to the frying pans to be cooked by solar light.

One year in Ethiopia for the smallest Farrell

Lily has now reached the milestone of having lived in Ethiopia for one year, after arriving at six weeks of age a year ago today. It has been a truly wonderful year!

This is our happy little girl a year on. 

NB. Telltale signs that she lives in Ethiopia - behind Lily are solar lanterns on the window sill and outside the window an emergency water barrel for when the mains water is off! I guess babies covered in porridge look the same anywhere though!

Maths in Africa

Josh brought home a maths sheet today - one of the word problems his group had written was:

14 people eat mangoes. 8 people die. How many are left?

I had to read it twice to be sure it really said that.