What the Swiss are Hiding

It's chocolate.

Did you really think I was going to talk about politics? That, like riding motorcycles without a helmet, and eating bleu cheese in the evening, are strictly prohibited.

By my husband. But he is away.

But I will be good.

Back to the Swiss: a dear friend here (who happens to be Swiss) invited the kids and me for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Those of you who know my dislike of long conversations will be surprised that I can talk with this woman for hours. I don't even know what we talk about. I just know I enjoy her company immensely. Her husband is a missionary pilot who is sleeping in the bush somewhere tonight, so we felt an immediate kinship since my husband is sleeping in a nice hotel somewhere tonight. But I'm not bitter about that.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening. Looking in her refrigerator as we prepared dinner, I noticed a slightly orange glow coming from the top drawer. Where most people keep yogurt, or leftover salami. But don't keep them together, or the salami will make the yogurt taste dodgy.

Much to my delight, the glow was caused by the chocolate pictured above. When I asked to take a photo of it, she covered up some other chocolate that was not Swiss. "Someone sent it to us" she apologized for the lesser cacao delight. I found the whole experience hilarious, and made a note to include eating Swiss chocolate in my "things to do the next time I'm a place where Swiss chocolate is available."

In other news:

The kids and I were in the banda this morning, reading and playing Dolch word bingo (if you've never played Dolch word bingo, you're missing out! It's never too late to start.) and playing a few rounds of Rory's Story Cubes.

After a few minutes, we saw this bee:

Although we just studied insects after finding another dead bee, we took a moment to study this one.

I flipped it over with my finger after a few minutes, to show the kids its wings.

And to our dismay, it started crawling around, and flew away. I kid you not. It's a miracle!

Our friend Esther came to play in the last week; she and Henry had fun feeding our rabbit. His name is Flopsy Hopsy and we inherited him from some friends who left recently.

We call him Flops, or just Flop, most of the time. We are all about syllabic conservation here.

One of my favorite things we brought with us was this hammock. It's made in a village in Mexico, where they grow cotton and make amazing hammocks from long, thin cotton threads. Pay no attention to the grammatical errors on their website. You may not fully understand this until you live in a country where you have the language of a two year-old. The hammock is amazing. And strong. All four of us can fit in it, and the kids enjoy cocooning in it while I swing them to and fro.

Henry picked some fruit from one of our trees. I can't remember the name of it (see language deficiency reference above), but it is safe, and tastes kind of citrus-y. Here he is washing the fruit before we gobble it up.

We've been following the Bible curriculum of The Gospel Project. We recently talked about Adam and Eve, and sin, and repentance (what parent of a five year-old doesn't talk about this weekly?). Here is Ruby's interpretation of the moment Adam and Eve realized their sin in the garden. At the bottom, Adam and Eve are in heaven. It is very important to Ruby that stories have a happy ending. I love that girl.

It's All in the View

Caught a full rainbow this morning after the rains; when Ruby came outside to see it, she explained to me how a rainbow is made visible, and that Roy G. Biv is an easy way to memorize the colors. Then, looking at the flood in our front yard, she explained the water cycle to me. This was all before breakfast.

An hour later, we were warming up for the day (a little stretching, a little joint compression game, a little sensory work to music and dancing around), and we were kicking as we danced. Ruby, who shares my (once) super-flexible genetics, said, "Look how high I can kick!"

She proceeded to kick her right leg with such force and agility that she kicked herself in the face, knocked her glasses off and fell over. We all laughed. Hard.

The more I press into my children, spending time with them, looking them in the eyes and really listening to only them when they talk, looking at them when I talk to them...the more I spend true quality time with them, the better our relationships become. And the better our relationships become, the more time I want to spend with them.

Please understand: we are not perfect. Even this morning, between our sweet moments, we had more than one tantrum per child, a nasty argument between them, and it is still quite possible that I will be disowned as their mother or uninvited to next year's birthday parties by the end of today. We haven't had electricity much of this week, and one of our four water tanks is leaking, causing us to run out of water every 2000 liters. We just got done having a huge conversation about how we all make mistakes, and how we must learn from them and keep living life.

Even with all the shortcomings of our family and life situation, we can choose to concentrate in the fun and beautiful moments, small as they may seem. Or, we can choose to live in conflict, chaos and fear. Which will you and I choose today?

It really is a lovely road.

Turtle Island Field Trip

 Let me be upfront - I have a hundred other photos like these, it was a matter of choosing some to share with you. This was a gorgeous Easter weekend in God's creation, and we celebrated.

One great aspect of living where we live is that it's so easy to visualize what life was like in Biblical times. The fishing boats must have been so similar to these. People worked hard to live, without the amenities we enjoy like supermarkets and petrol stations to fuel our cars.

Have you ever considered that this is the same sea that was around from the beginning of Earth? How cool is that? And we love exploring it. Our school theme this week is creativity; it's so vital for children to exercise and understand theirs! We were made by the creator of creativity...and if you don't believe that, try snorkeling.

 Len taught Ruby and Henry to snorkel this year and they are constantly asking to go now. There's a place about 20 minutes from our house with a nice reef, but Changuu, or Prison Island, was our destination this weekend. It's a 30 minute or so boat ride from Stone Town in Zanzibar (which is a 90 minute ferry ride from Dar).

 I wish we had an underwater camera. We saw dozens of different fish, schools of vibrant yellows and blues and purples. I saw every fish in Finding Nemo and then some. Coral in every color of the rainbow. Len saw a moray eel and we all got stung by jellyfish, but I didn't mind because they were transparent purple.

This guy was out with lobster cages and seemed to not even notice us floating around his dinner. I wonder if he caught the amazing lobster we had at Mercury's?

 Being a holiday weekend, the island was quite busy, but still peaceful. That's our boat in the center of this photo:

The island is famous as a refuge for the Aldabra Tortoise, imported from the Seychelles in 1919. They are not found anywhere else in the world. Read more about the sanctuary here.

Baker, a friend from Zanzibar, was our guide and pointed out the extensive fencing around the island. We thought it was to keep poachers out, but Baker noted that while that is true, the main reason is to keep the tortoises from dropping off the cliffs into the sea, where they sink like anchors. No graceful sea turtles, these.

The tortoises below are about 85 years old and not fully grown. Two-year old 'babies' were about the size of basketballs.

 Graceful painted walls bordered walkways throughout the Prison part of the island. It was only used as a quarantine camp for a short while before being decommissioned.

Len and the kids are standing on the edge of what was the prison bathroom, which is a 20 foot sheer drop onto rocks.

 It seems like a lovely place to be quarantined, really.

 I thought this Zanzibar-styled door was a nice touch to the hotel that was recently built.

 Len took a photo of me, to prove I really exist. You know how I prefer to be behind the camera.

 I am really not trying to be obnoxious with these sea shots. Really.

 Ok, look at the shadows closely...the rounded shape at the bottom of these steps, and another at top right. Can you guess what it is?

 Look closely...they are massive schools of fish (not tiny ones, either!) hiding from fisherman. Henry said, "Hey, it's like Swimmy!" as in one of his favorite books, Swimmy, by Leo Lionni.

 We passed this ship on the way out and back. Not sure what the deal was with it, but we've been learning about what makes ships float or sink, and this was a great opportunity to point out the Plimsoll Line. Also, the name of this ship is the RAK Indiana. Kind of fun to see a reminder of home in the middle of the Indian Ocean.

 Headed back to Stone Town after a great day on the water. What a great use of four hours of life.

10 Favorite Books This Week

Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland by Tomie dePaola
The Hardest Word by Jacqueline Jules, Illustrated by Katherine Janus Kahn
Fish Eyes, A Book You Can Count On by Lois Ehlert
Sew What, Betsy Ross? by Peter and Connie Roop
The Courage of Sarah Noble by Alice Dalgliesh, Illustrations by Leonard Weisgard
The Listening Walk by Paul Showers, Illustrated by Aliki
A Chair For My Mother by Vera B. Williams
King Midas and the Golden Touch as told by Charlotte Craft, Illustrated by K.Y. Craft
How Much is a Million? by David M. Schwartz, Pictures by Steven Kellogg
What Happens When I Talk To God? by Stormie Omartian, Artwork by Shari Warren

Well, it's St. Patrick's Day and I have to recommend the kid-friendly bio by Tomie dePaola for you and your friends and family...Saint Patrick pretty much rocked and still does. If more people knew his story, he'd be the most famous superhero out there. Glowing hand? Seriously...it's all in there.
Fish Eyes is another book from my math-book-in-curriculum friend who lovingly reviews these and writes great guides for me, I can't thank her enough! We read on our 'school at the beach day' this week and it was a big hit. Bonus: we saw a puffer fish washed up on the shore, which was a big treat for our treasure walk time.

Sew What, Betsy Ross?, The Courage of Sarah Noble and How Much is a Million? were school books from past weeks that the kids got out to read again. And again. Sometimes that's all I need to really like a book. Sarah Noble is exceptional in its character building, and the kids have been interested in counting to a million lately (Ruby mercifully stopped counting sometime shortly after 2,100 recently in her quest to count to a million).

Saying sorry is something we have been working on, and The Hardest Word takes on that challenge, although the kids are onto it now.

King Midas and the Golden Touch is a favorite that is often chosen by both kids for free time reading. The illustrations are gorgeous and the format is elegant. It just feels special.

A Chair For My Mother - well, you just have to read it. Reading it without a catch in my voice is hard. It's about real life, it's hard, and we keep going. And find joy in everyday life.

The Listening Walk is another favorite of mine - we have always done this, and you probably have too. Take a nature walk, or a walk through town, and just listen...to birds, airplanes, voices, vehicles, trees in the wind, waves against stone...you get the idea. There's a lot out there when we pay attention. Somehow, having a book about a subject just reinforces it as being a good idea in my kids' minds.

I'm a little behind on the book lists - progress, not perfection is the goal around here. Thanks for reading.

(Fun) Week In The Life I

We've been going through a 'quiet' phase lately, just wanting to live and enjoy each day. This is good for productivity, but not blogging.

For a birthday party on Saturday, I wanted to make these coconut-lime sugar cookies, but couldn't find any pre-shredded coconut. We bought a fresh coconut at the local duka and I drained the water out of it while Len readied the chopping block:

I should add that I was hacking at the thing in futility and Len killed it with one swipe. He also zested and juiced a bunch of limes for me, since obtaining shredded coconut took longer than I expected.

A heated discussion erupted Sunday after we found ourselves locked out of the gate and Len refused to let me climb up and rappel in. There is a way, I have planned for this, I was like Rhino the gerbil in Bolt - I was so ready! But he won out and eventually our neighbor, who has a key, came home and all was well. Funny little times.

Another friend asked us to celebrate his birthday with his family on Monday, and for a few hours we enjoyed a small island about 20 minutes' boat ride from where we live.

Len's goal was to introduce the kids to snorkeling. They took right to it! Ruby and Henry each spent over an hour peering into the reef; they can't wait to go again.

Thanks to Neal Stanton for the photos!

 And one of our favorite meals we've had here: fresh fish and calamari, with chips. You order when you arrive on the island, they go catch it and cook it right there. Delicious.

Last summer, our hinged tortoise, Myrtle, went missing. And stayed missing. We have seen NO trace of him for nearly a year. Tuesday morning, he showed up looking for breakfast. It's a miracle! Kill the fatted carrot!

I cannot imagine where he was for these months...we have searched many times and I was sure we would just find bones and a shell one day.

Myrt was hungry - he's eaten two full-size carrots and an apple so far, in addition to whatever he's finding out there.

He is missing a couple of shell scales - good thing there are no other pets around to tease him.

Later Tuesday, we went to support the Salasala ministry our friends lead, where kids living in one of the very poverty-stricken areas get to come and be kids once a week. One of the things I love love love about this ministry is that the only motive is to love others with the love of Christ. And the two couples who quaterback it are immensely gifted and educated and could be gaining accolades in other places, but they choose to serve the poorest of the poor here. Beautiful.

Yes, that's not even a week...more to come as the week gets more fun! :)

This Week's Favorite Books: Week 1

Miss Rumphius by Barbara Cooney
Celebrate: A Book of Jewish Holidays by Judith Gross, Illustrated by Bari Weissman
Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes
Brave Cloelia by Jane Louise Curry, Illustrated by Jeff Crosby
The Oak Inside the Acorn by Max Lucado, Illustrated by George Angelini
Edwina, The Dinosaur Who Didn't Know She Was Extinct by Mo Willems
The Story of Queen Esther by Jenny Koralek, Illustrated by Grizelda Holderness
Paul Revere's Ride by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Illustrated by Ted Rand
Anansi The Spider adapted and illustrated by Gerald McDermott
Echoes For The Eye: Poems to Celebrate Patterns in Nature by Barbara Juster Esbensen, Illustrated by Helen K. Davie

Choosing only ten books to feature here was difficult, but these are our ten favorites from the last week. Each is superb in its own way and I hope you have a chance to read all of them. The links are to Amazon, only to let you know what the cover looks like. I encourage you to check for them at your local library or a reseller like www.betterworldbooks.com before you buy a new copy.

We celebrated Purim this week, so I pulled out Celebrate and Esther and worked them into our reading . Both kids helped me make Hamenstachen cookies, filled with my favorite Paradise jam made from local papaya, carrots, passionfruit and pineapple. Esther is one of the kids' favorite books ever, with gorgeous illustrations and ample opportunities to vilify Haman while celebrating Mordecai. Celebrate is a great book that takes Jewish holidays and makes the traditions and history easy to understand. Ruby read the Purim section to us, and Henry really enjoys the kid-centric illustrations.

Ruby's love of all things girly is reflected in Miss Rumphius, Chrysanthemum, Brave Cloelia and Edwina. Miss Rumphius is a book I would love to be able to buy cases of and give them away to every child I meet. It's a beautiful tale of being courageous and fulfilling your dreams and purpose in life.

Cloelia's determination and courage wins me over every time, and has enough army action to satisfy Henry as well. He also likes the maps on the endpages, and will sometimes go get the book to refer to these maps when we are reading other books about Rome or Italy.

Chrysanthemum's crisis resolution and happy ending always leaves me with a happy smile, too. If we had another girl, I would consider both Chrysanthemum and Delphinium as fine names.

The Oak Inside the Acorn is another great story (a little longer) about becoming who you were made to be, and learning to accept change when it comes.

Paul Revere's Ride is one of our school books this week, although we've been reading it for months. I remember my parents reading the poem to me as a child, and the fantastic illustrations in this edition keep everyone's imagination flying along with the horses' hoofbeats.

Echoes for the Eye is a book a good friend gave us when we were home; we've been reading it for a few weeks as the topics come up. It's a great way to help kids see patterns in nature and begin to think mathematically. We read it this week at the beach as well as a local cafe, and the kids enjoyed finding shapes and patterns wherever they looked.

Anansi's colorful wood-block illustrations and story of cooperation made this a great choice by Henry for bedtime one night.

Edwina is one of my all-time favorite reads and I hope it becomes one of yours, too.

We've been plowing through school lately; I try to let the kids set the pace and they've been hungry to learn, but I sense a natural break coming in the next couple of weeks. Our biggest challenge with Ruby has been getting her enough new material to read!

Field Trip: Tide Pools

 Our little co-op has been having great fun learning our way through history this year. Ruby and Henry have made great progress; Ruby is reading chapter books as fast as we can give them to her it seems, and Henry is reading his first sight words. They both love learning, and for that I'm thankful!

This month's field trip was to the local beach, where a European couple who teach science here generously offered to take our kiddos for a guided tour of tide pools near their house. Our family loves exploring these constantly changing treasures wherever we go here, and it was an extra special treat to have the Smits along to answer our many questions.

Capturing creatures isn't my thing, as I prefer to observe (and teach my kids to observe) animals in their environments. However, the kids each had a small net and were encouraged to see what they could discover. Ruby was pleased to find a large sea cucumber.

 There were also dozens of assorted crabs, including this one I hadn't seen before, with hairy red legs:

 Henry found a starfish, but Ruby put it back in the water (without telling her brother), "so that it could be healthy and live." I love that sensitivity about her. In all fairness, she put her sea cucumber back as well, but we had to have a little family meeting about communicating important life events, like when you put your brother's treasure someplace he can't find it, without his permission. It was a really cool one, school-bus yellow with long, thin legs and grey tips.

Here is our friend Emmett with a cute starfish he found:

 One thing I like about beachcombing is that twice a day, with each tide, you get a totally new set of discoveries. And I like to think we have at least that many new beginnings each day. Each morning bring a new day with no mistakes, only opportunities, right? Still, I need a couple of restarts most days. When I'm near the ocean, I sense that God is big enough to handle all of my 'even though's".

I'll leave you with what was by far the coolest find, a sea turtle washed up on shore...it was over a foot across, dead less than a day. The kids really enjoyed checking it out. Hopefully, it can be cleaned up in a few days and used for older science classes.

Moon Over Mt. Meru

 If my camera could do the northern skyline justice right now, I'd post a picture of the moon high over Mt. Meru for you to enjoy. It's stunning and made me think about all the great moments of today. Let me share a few with you.

 This might not be your idea of a great time, but seeing a black mamba just about made Ruby and Henry's day. We've been studying reptiles in school, and Arusha's Meserani Snake Park provided a great setting for a field trip.

 This Gaboon Viper and its poisonous friends were behind glass and concrete, but they were still pretty intimidating. This guys' head wouldn't have fit in my hand.

The Horned Viper below was also massive:

 There were also several non-poisonous snakes and we got to hold a couple, including this sand snake. Ruby named him Nofeet and Henry asked if we could have him for a pet. I guess he really misses our kittens that disappeared last year.

 Speaking of disappearing, there were also a few large pythons at the park today, accompanied by photos of similar pythons who had eaten sleeping guards. Let this be a warning for anyone tempted to nap on the job!

The park also offered a guided tour of the Masai museum, and camel rides with a view of the local cattle auction. When Ruby and I were on the camel, she said, "Mommy, I love God's creation."

 And really, what's not to love?

There were a variety of crocodiles there, too. Separated from the camels and people, of course...that would be exciting though! This Nile crocodile is about half grown and was around 8 feet long. Our guide said that she was about 20 years old. I thought she looked pretty with the foilage in her skin.

 Loti, our guide, carefully held a young crocodile for the kids to touch. This one is about three years old and was snappy.

 Loti, a Masai warrior, also chatted casually with us about birds, conservation, and how he killed a lion in 1996 to achieve his manhood in the tribe. Later, Jonathan, our guide in the museum, added that Masai men must be circumsized at age 18 before they kill their lion. Immediately after which they drink large amounts of a honey-based alcoholic beverage.

 Several small Masai villages line the road to the park.

We're staying with friends who love Jesus and teenagers in Arusha, and Len had a great time speaking at their camp this weekend. Seriously great fun!

While he was busy at camp, I took the kids to the local Cultural Heritage Center and enjoyed the art gallery immensely.

These look way more real in the photo than in person. Here, my children dramatize a buffalo chasing a child. Good times at the foot of Mt. Meru!