Cooking at school

 We don't really have facilities here for regular cooking lessons, but the boys did have a day recently where they got to learn a little about cooking - this is Tom and hid friends being let loose with knives!! 

U12 football starts

 The U12 boys football team have been training for a few weeks now and have played their first couple of games. We won't mention the scores, we just hope they win a game at some point during the season!! 

Go Bingham! 

Defo dabo

Defo dabo is a large bread, that is shared, typically eaten on holidays. While we were learning how to make injera we also got to see how this is made in a local home. 

Making injera

The national staple food is injera with wets (sauces). During the break we went with some friends to a local home to learn how to make injera. The batter was already made as it has to ferment for 3 days, but we got to try pouring it on the injera cooker, which was a lot harder than it looked!

Cross country time again

This week saw our annual cross country races where all students have to compete against each other to win points for their house. 

Every school should have tea time

 Every day we are on campus we head to the teachers tea time at 10.25. And gone are the days of being able to share a snack with Lily, she now thinks she is big enough to eat an entire snack by herself, and drink out of big cups. The snack she usually manages, the drink may or may not get drunk before it is spilt outside!

:

 Lily at the start of tea time before all the teachers arrive. 

 We get to have 'tea' with all our teacher friends and eat home made snacks every morning. Seriously this is a tradition that should be embraced everywhere! 

Boom times for Ethiopia's coffee shops

Ethiopia's coffee shops were in the BBC news last week!

http://www.bbc.com/news/business-29541768

cereal choices

While I can't say I miss the extensive choice of cereal in the massive supermarkets in the UK, this is the entire cereal selection in our local supermarket. Can you see the red box of corn flakes? That was the ONLY box of non-sugary cereal in the whole store. So we bought that and something making claim to being like chocolate flakes. I won't get started on how much cereal costs here, either....oh and Lily is sitting in the trolley drawing on my shopping list, and herself, thanks to one of the shop assistants thinking she would like a pen to play with...you don't get that in Tesco!

Learning comes alive: juggling and junk models

Nathan the juggler came to visit Bingham today and told stories through juggling. Each class then has a session of learning to juggle and walk on stilts etc with him later in the day. The highlight was seeing him juggle with fire at tea-break!

Josh's class have been building junk models which Lily and I found on display outside their classroom this morning. This big creature was built by Josh and his friends and one of the smaller ones below was built by Josh and his friend Biruk.

Learning comes alive: reading day

For reading day Tom got to dress as his favourite book character. No surprises that he dressed as Percy Jackson as he has just re-read that series of books recently. I'm not sure if the grumpy face was part of it.

They had an author come and visit and work with them on how to develop their own story writing. And later they spent a lesson reading with Josh's class. I'd love to have been a fly on the wall during that lesson to see how the boys did reading to each other!

The rains are finally over

At least I hope that the rain has finished, it does seem to have and so I have cleaned off the picnic bench and started hanging the washing in the garden again in celebration :-)

Oh and we now have a tortoise - can you see him too? 

Learning comes alive week

 While the big kids are all off on trips around Ethiopia, the smaller kids are still at school having learning comes alive week. Each day has a different theme, yesterday was art, today is sport. Lily and I went out to watch Josh and share the fun. Above he is trying to catch the hula hoops with his body that his team mates throw at him. 

colour run = fun fundraising

 Never heard of a colour run? Well let us show you what it is all about....our teachers ran around the school, using some of the play equipment as obstacles...

 ...while children threw water balloons and coloured paint at them. Brilliant. Really brilliant. And we got the kids to pay for the water balloons and paint and so raised money for two local projects supported by the school :-)

Tommy with Brad (our Director) and Malcolm (our Elementary Principal) celebrating the end of the race!

Spiritual Emphasis Week

 

This week we have had Keith Smith with us from Texas teaching our middle school and high school kids every day. Middle school have been considering what it means to be transformed rather than conformed, while high school have been walking through the Song of Songs with Keith. It has been a great week having Keith teach our kids, and please be praying for them as they consider the things they have been discussing.

Shoes, Cows and Umbrellas

I have been reading a study, which looked at child feeding practices in a rural area of Ethiopia. 25 % of children aged 6-8 months and 52% of children aged 12-23 months in this area have stunted growth. Part of the study examined differences between families where the children did or did not have stunted growth. There were all the factors you might expect: age of parents, education of parents, the food being given to the child, maternal stature ...

New teachers and past students

If you missed the video of our new teachers on facebook you can find it here:

http://binghamacademy.net/latest-news/2014/8/21/meet-our-new-teachers-for-20142015

And to see where some of our graduates have headed to this year you can also check out this video:

http://binghamacademy.net/latest-news/2014/8/22/bingham-graduates-are-well-equipped-for-university-study

School begins for another year

Today was the first day of school, and the boys loved every minute of it by the sounds of it. I wonder how long that will last?

 Tom and Miss Burch in Grade 5 (the last year of elementary/primary school)

my £2.10 bench

I popped out to the junk shop last week. I had seen what I thought was a dolls sized cot as we drove past so I went to have a closer look. It turned out it was a tiny wooden cot about the size of a moses basket, actually for a real baby, so too big really for dolls (or keeping in Lily's bedroom!), so instead I bought a bench. One day it will be dry enough to actually sit on it.

Ideas for behind toilet storage welcome

When we returned to Bingham we found that our toilet is now no longer adjacent the wall. We're now taking suggestions as to what to do with the space behind the toilet and how to cover up the big hole! Let us know any ideas!

English cake

Cafes and shops sometimes sell 'English Cake'. The yellow cake on the left is just labelled as such whereas the cake on the right is labelled 'English Chocolate Dry Cake'. Always makes me smile as it doesn't resemble anything I would associate with English cakes as it is always very dry (as boasted by the description!) and flavourless.