Christmas

For our Christmas tree this year we finally decided to use a real branch after many attemps at making one out of cardboard and paper, and we made a lot of ornaments as well as borrowing some of Alyssa's ornaments and other decorations.

For presents we made every family a DVD with pictures on it and we also gave them a few other things like headbands we made and shadow puppets. For our family I gave mom a bag I sewed, dad a Burundi ornament, Mekdes a clay dolphin, and I gave Biniyam a sword.

We hade a Christmas party at the McLaughlins and the school kids had a Christmas play and we sang and talked.

Merry Christmas!

Thanks to everyone who sent gifts, especially aunt Theresa, who sent us a surprise big package.

Our Christmas tree.

Biniyam playing with toys.

Our Christmas dinner, when he was alive, we were going to keep him but then it was confirmed to mom that he was a rooster, and she doesn't want a rooster.

Our weekend getaway

This weekend we came to a hotel called club du lac in Bujumbura that's right on lake Tanganyika, it has a big beach, a big swimming pool, good internet, a playground, and 2 African gray parrots, one that lets us pet her.

Yesterday we went to another hotel to check it out, it was really pretty and it had a little chimpanzee that came right up to you and let you pet him, it also had a mom that was kept in a cage because she was mean. We ate lunch there on the beach and while we were waiting for our food the chimp climbed up the deck and came over to our table and grabed Mekdes's fanta and ran away.

It's a lot hotter in buja than in Kibuye and we spent most of our day swimming, we can't swim in the lake because it has crocodiles, hippos, and bacteria.

We gave him a bottle of water and he took the top of and drank it

We can see the mountains of the Congo from the beach.

Thanksgiving in Kibuye

This year for thanksgiving we celebrated on Saturday because on Thursday all the doctors were working, we had a big feast at the Cropseys house and lots of people came, we had pies, ham, fruit, cookies, and a lot more, we even got a turkey from America.

Mom made a carrot sufflet that tasts like sweet patatoes and some cornbread pudding that she makes at home, she also made some pumpkin cookies.

On Friday the kids all had a craft party and we made turkey's out of candy, like we cut of the tips of the candy corn and the candy corn was the tail feathers and the tips were the beaks, grandma Cropsey sent us all the candy and the instructions since we can't buy it here.

We had to stick them together with frosting so we could eat them, we used whoppers for the head, Oreos for the body's, peanutbutter cups for the belly, and sprinkles for the eyes.

Here are some pictures of the turkeys: 

The waterfalls

Hi,

The other day we went to the waterfalls that are about 45 minutes away. There are like four different waterfalls that were there and one place where we could look out over the top of one, but mom wouldn't let us get near the edge.

We also saw like 7 monkeys in the trees looking at us, they were gray with white around their face and we're super cute, but they were so fast I didn't get a picture of them. 

We went there with some of the med students, our teacher, a doctor from Kenya, a pediatrician, and our P.E teacher. 

Chameleons

Hello,

We are chameleon-sitting a chameleon named Gooseberry, he is brownish-green and when he's sunbathing he gets dark brown stripes. The other day at church we found our very own chameleon in the grass, we named him Buddy, he's very bright green with blue stripes. 

They take care of the flies around our house and when they eat them it's really cool, first they see it and stick their head toward it then they open their mouth and start to stick out their tounge and then really quickly they snap out their tongue and pull it back into their mouth with the fly on it and munch it up.

Their eyes are also really cool, how they move in different directions at the same time.

Here are some photos:

Halloween

For halloween this year I was a ancient Egyptian, Mekdes was a jellyfish, and Biniyam was a turtle. We made all our costumes like for my cape we used a curtain, for my dress we used a sheet, and for my wig we used egg bags.

The night before Halloween we got one pumpkin and each carved something like an eye the nose or half the mouth.

And for halloween we wore our costumes to school and during lunch break we had lunch at our teachers house with a special meal where there was a menu with foods in disguise like pepper was called black and floting eyeballs were a soda drink with mango and a candy eyeball in it. Then we played games and went on a treasure hunt.Then that night at 5:00 we went tricker treating around the missionary houses of Kibuye. 

All the house helpers and workers got a good laugh at us as we walked about the day dressed up.

A Burundian house

Hi everyone, 

The other day we went to our house helper Amoni's house, it was about a half an hour walk and it had just rained so it was pretty muddy, by the time we got back my feet were really hurting from my boots rubbing against my heels. 

All of the houses are made of brick and some have banana trees surrounding them, a lot of people have chickens, cows, and sometimes goats. 

They gave us fanta, which is a treat, and bread rolls with honey inside them.

We went outside and played with all the kids who followed us there, we made a seesaw out of a board and everyone thought it was a lot of fun. 

Here are some pictures: