Joel celebrated with water games in the garden with a group of friends a few days before his birthday.... We are very grateful for Uganda's year-round sunshine to make these kinds of parties possible!
On the actual birthday, we took him fishing with his brother on the shores of beautiful Lake Victoria...
They didn't catch any fish, but they did practise their fishing skills and had a fun time doing so!
In the evening, one of our MAF pilots, who is from India, cooked us the most amazing Indian curry - which we then followed with an ice-cream birthday cake for Joel!
A lovely way to celebrate Joel's 8th birthday! So far, he has celebrated his first two brithdays in Tanzania, his third in Kenya, his fourth and fifth in South Sudan and his sixth, seventh and eighth birthdays in Uganda :-)
To celebrate Easter, we hosted a MAF gathering in our home on the Saturday before the Easter weekend.
Esther and Joel got to work early Saturday morning to make an Easter cake:
We had a few special events planned for the kids (and adults who wanted to get involved!). One of these was an Easter Bonnet competition!
I am not afraid to admit that I am not gifted in artistic skills! I have imagination, but I am no artist- so I asked a friend to help me create our entry for the Easter bonnet competition!
Even with her help, our offering was a little eccentric! Although we could safely host the competition knowing that we had at least made an effort to compete!!
Thankfully the other participants had some beautiful entries! We had a "catwalk" for the competitors...
Winners took away 1st, 2nd and 3rd prizes. The prizes were chocolate bunnies brought over from the Netherlands by a generous giver! Unsurprisingly we did not get a prize- but we did get given chocolate by a kind friend for hosting. That was a bonus! :-)
The children also had an Easter egg hunt around the garden, again with mini, chocolate Easter eggs donated by a kind benefactor from the Netherlands.
After the Easter egg hunt, the children used pre-boiled eggs to create pretty patterns, using wax crayons and food dye. Fun for all!
Just to add to the sugar over-dose, the children made the cornflake-crunchie cakes below, with mini Easter eggs from South Africa to decorate!
Personally, the local chocolate tasted bitter to me and the imported South African Easter eggs just aren't as nice as Cadbury's mini-eggs! Maybe I'm just too English?
However, since our children have never really tasted a "real" English Easter egg, they know no different. They enjoyed every mouthful that they gobbled up!
Ancient Egypt
Just before Easter, Joel's class finished their history unit at school on Ancient Egypt. To mark the end of this topic, Joel's wonderful, creative teacher organised a themed day. On that day, I sent a Mummy to school, instead of my little boy.
His brother and sister were an integral part of the fun, as they put the costume on Joel:
Imagine Joel's delight when we went out to Kampala's Speke Resort with some friends over the Easter weekend and found a real, live camel!
Who needs to go to Egypt to find a camel, when the camel came to us in Kampala?
And finally...
Over the actual Easter weekend, we met a MAF family who are new to us and have just moved to Kampala from Chad. They came to eat lunch with us- and we had a new fruit for dessert that day:
It was a bizarre, unknown fruit to all of us. But if you can discover its name and origin, feel free to let me know!
Our children were unafraid to try it (unlike their mother- I'm just getting over a 6-week stomach bug and have no desire to risk strange foods right now!).
That was almost 2 weeks ago and they have suffered no ill effects, so it seems it is safe- despite its weird appearance! :-)
