Is that a real snake?

So we are well and truly into the second half of this term... and what a great few weeks we have had here at Amano!
We ended half term with a staff braai on our veranda. Thankfully the storms held off and we were able to enjoy our burgers in peace :-) Was really great to have all staff together in one place at the same time! The terms seem to slip by with most staff being extremely busy so to all gather at once is a real treat!

The first weekend back was our 'annual cook off'; based on the idea of TV programme 'Ready Steady Cook' the grade 11&12 boys and girls go head to head in preparing and cooking a main meal. They each get a list of the same ingredients which they can choose from. The boys were cooking at Mr Jarrett's house and the girls a combination of the tiny trailer kitchen and the banana house with Miss Kerry. They each had 2 hours to cook and then we all joined back together to enjoy each others cooking and let the judges decide!

The evening was filled with lots of yummy food from both teams but in the end the girls won it again with their creativity, appearance and taste!

This term, the girls dorm have been busy busy trying to fundraise for a Girls dorm day out! They have been busy baking cakes to sell at school and cleaning staff houses to add up the kwacha for a trip out to Nsobe Game Park in Ndola. They worked extremely hard and raised enough to go on the weekend!
We set off nice and early at 7am for the 2 and bit hour drive. We had a great morning of snake viewing (and handling!), canoeing and swimming. Followed by lunch in the restaurant of burgers and chips. Then we had a rather non-eventful game drive around the park (although there was fierce competition between the male staff and girls of who could spot the most animals!). To put the icing on the cake we stopped off at local shopping mall for an icecream! Such a great day out and a real treat for the girls (and staff!) to get off site and have a treat :-)

Jon and I are both healthy and happy and enjoying life here at Amano :-)

Half Term

I watched a brilllliant film last night with a friend called 'Simon Birch'. Such a brilliant, laugh out loud, unexpected tears, crazy ending kind of film! There was such a poignant quote in it which pretty much sums up this term so far; 'Time is a monster that cannot be reasoned with. It responds like a snail to our impatience, then it races like a gazelle when you can't catch a breath.' 

So crazily 4 weeks have already passed and we now have half term, it weirdly feels too soon but of course is nice to 'catch a breath' :-) Jon is busy catching up with lesson plans and trying to get ahead for next term (and playing lots of computer games ;-))Not much to report as been mainly working and chilling. We had a lovely night staying at a friends house on Saturday in town. Played darts, watched movies and had a great time catching up with them. Seen other friends and eaten too much!! 

Last night I took some time to make a 'photo wall' in our dining room (I say room...I mean area...lol). We took the pictures down when we moved but it's really nice to have familiar smiling faces down on us as we eat our supper again :-) Reminds me of how blessed we are to have such awesome friends and family both in England and here in zambia too!  
Thought I would also add some pics of the inside of our lovely new trailer :-)


 

Lounge Area

 

Teeny tiny lovely bathroom

 

Kitchen area

 

Bedroom

It's small but cosy and we really feel happy here. Not only that but it's sooo great having the veranda and being able to sit out there and watch all the wildlife and all the spectacular storms.
Not much else to report but thought I would share this funny photo from youth group before we broke up. We came up with a 'photo caption game'. So Jarrett and I gave the young people who were in groups 7 different headline captions. They had to then take a picture of themselves to represent the headline. We then showed them and chose a winner. Some of the headlines included 'Crowd horrified as man gets ngwee (coin) stuck up his nose', 'Half Term', but the winning team won with this picture for headline 'People shocked as lady gets leg bitten off by lion!!haha!
Jon and I have now booked a safari in April for when my Mum comes out to Zambia. Let's hope this headline doesn't make any reappearances! eek!

Sports, Flour and Water!

We've had a brilliant three weeks being back at Amano :-) We have one more week and then we break for half term.
The last post I blogged was about all the wildlife and there's certainly been more of that since then! Last week the grade 11's had a surprise visit in their classroom from a very unwelcome boomslang snake which had decided to join them for a bit of their english lesson! The snake was spotted by one of the students who made a VERY quick exit, leaving the rest of the class climbing for safety on top of their tables!! eek. Thankfully one of the gardeners came quickly to behead it! Drama or what!

Jarrett and I are now very happy to have made the move into the banana house for the youth group (pics below). Makes such a difference to have a permanent residence and also when the rains come we don't have to cancel because the roof is a lot more soundproof than the hall we were using before!

Last weekend Amano hosted some friendly games; 3 schools came to visit to play Netball, secondary boys football and primary girls football. Was a great day and really amazing to see the Amano students really working well together as a team and supporting one another. Although it was a friendly it was great result that the girls won all of their netball matches, the boys won 2 out of their 3 footy matches and the primaries won 1 of their matches. A great result!

Yesterday morning, Jon went off to the village of Filibaba again to take donations of clothes/toys etc to the local church. He took some secondary students along to help distribute and also to experience a bit of village life. They had a good time and returned once again with a live chicken for the boys dorm to enjoy! Pictures coming soon!

 And yesterday we had  lots of fun playing a very messy game out on the field with the boarders :-) The aim of the game was to try and assasinate the other teams 'president' by throwing water balloons at them whilst the defenders aimed to killed the offenders with flour bombs! A lot of fun which ended in mayhem after the game was over with a free for all with the water balloons and flour bombs.

Outside, Inside!!

We are nearly at the end of our first week of the term. It has been busy but really good to get back into routine and see all the young people again.
But we seem to have had an eventful week in terms bugs/insects and furry little rodents.
This week Monday I started a morning running routine (at 6am!!!) with our caravan neighbour Lukondo, all went well up until the end of our run which resulted in lots of screaming and a swift run home as I ran into a verrrry large spiders web spanning our path; the worst bit being that seconds before running into the web I had spotted the HUGE furry eight legged friend out of the corner of my eye but by that time it was too late to spot!!
Tuesday I was on early morning wake up duty in the dorm. I had started to prepare breakfast and was pouring some cereals into bowls for the girls. We have 2 plastic containers to keep the cereal in and this week we had been given an extra cereal called 'Jungle Oats' which was in a small bag. I noticed it had already been opened the morning before and left on the side but thought nothing of it until as I started to pour, instead of the cereal coming out, out popped a little MOUSEs head! arghhhh. Wow, did I scream!! I think the mouse was more scared of me than I was of it! I dropped the oats and the mouse proceeded to run around my feet trying to find a place to hide. Poor Jon had heard the scream all the way from the caravan and had thought it was Lukondo in danger!! Uh oh.
By this point I was becoming rather paranoid of everything that moved!
Then to top it all off, yesterday I went across to the dorm to do a few things and Jon said he wanted to take a short nap because he was exhausted. When I returned from the dorm Jon was far from asleep as we had had a trail of army ants (huge ants which bite!) dropping from the air conditioning box thing (which is directly above our bed) which Jon had discovered as he was bitten during his nap! Thankfully we had recently brought a can of bug spray!! Jon then went outside to see where they were coming from outside without realising that he had stood directly in the centre of where they were all gathered (he said it was like a carpet of ants outside the van); this equalled lots of ants climbing up his trouser leg which resulted in a quick dash to strip off! lol. What a performance! Later in the evening I was taking a shower when I heard Jon scream, only to find out he literally had an ant in his pants!

So let's hope that's our fair share of bugs for this term although I doubt it :-)

The rains are very heavy here at the moment and Wednesday night there was a BIG storm. We had a lovely (although slightly scary) time sitting on our veranda watching the lightning and hearing the thunder and rain! What an incredible moment to be able to experience!

Moving into the trailer and the banana house!

We thank God for an AMAZING Christmas in England with friends and family. We have come back to Zambia with lots of great memories and our suitcases full of sweets and treats :-)
We had a brilliant time in Cornwall towards the end of our time in England. As a family we had all chipped in and booked a little cottage in Stratton; just outside where my Mum and Dad live in their camper van as well as my brother and his girlfriend. This meant that we were all together on Christmas day :-) It was such a special time to all be together and I think living far away from our families made us appreciate it all the more! The only downside was that it went too quick! Some pics below from our time in Cornwall!

We travelled back to Zambia on the 30th; a long but good journey and arrived back on the New Years Eve completely exhausted and falling into bed way before midnight!
We have now moved house within the Amano grounds and instead of returning to our flat in the dorm we have moved into a caravan/trailer which is a literally a 2minute walk from the dorm but offers more privacy and a place we can call our own :-) It was a bit of a challenge squeezing all of our things into a much smaller space (especially all of Jona's clothes and shoes!! ;-) but we are now all moved in and really loving it!

This is a picture of the outside of the trailer, there is roofing across the top of it which overhangs over a large veranda at the front and there is a small area for bbq's out the front although in the picture it is overgrown with grass! I will try and get some inside pics asap.

The other move that has happened since we returned is the youth groups move into the banana house. After a lot of planning and praying the banana house is now near complete and ready to use this term! yay! Jarrett and I were able to move all of the furniture we have collected for the youth ministry in yesterday and it is already starting to shape up. The space has a mini kitchen, storage room, 2 toilets and then a large space for the young people to hang out and play games. We both feel sooo pleased to now have this space to use!

More pictures to come! We hope to buy some new sofa's for the room today too :-)

Jon is currently at school attending the staff meeting and preparing lessons etc. The boarders all return on Sunday and school starts on Monday so the term is already underway!