Fool Me Once...Fool Me Twice...

Back when I was in the Fifth grade my Mom threw me an April Fool's Birthday Party and the crowning moment was the beautifully decorated birthday cake which I cut into and suddenly realized was nothing more than a beautifully decorated cardboard box.  Someone caught me right in the moments after.  It was a pretty spectacular joke!

And apparently, I'm rather susceptible to it.  

My friend Karen, who was at that first birthday party, had told her kids about that cake and they wanted to try their hand at it.  I stood in the kitchen and watched Karen make a cookie cake in a 9X13 pan so I did think it pretty strange that the cake came out in a square but you know maybe it was double stacked!!!  Anyway, here's the video proof of my falling prey to the joke a second time.

Did you hear me say, "How do I approach this? (referring to the cutting of the cake) I don't know what's under here."  Oh, the irony! 

My take away from this is that... 

1. I have some awesome people in my life who always help me celebrate the life that God has given me in fun ways and

2.  I'm never going to trust another birthday cake that doesn't come out with chocolate icing on it!  And especially not if it's pink...don't mind me while I stab this thing to see if it's real. :)

April Fools in My Fridge

Thanks to one of my former students, I received a highly amusing gift on my birthday.  She made her way into my house and filled my refrigerator with a bunch of silly characters.  

A sign of things to come!

Ha. I love the bushy mustache and tie man. For my Sahel Peeps...makes me feel like Paul David Tripp is in my fridge and that's just funny! :)

The eggs are just too funny!

I realized today that the guy behind the mustard bottle is supposed to have bushy eyebrows...love it!

I surely do love to laugh and this is certainly the gift that keeps on giving in that department.  Thanks for giving me the gift of laughter, HR!  This might just be the best birthday gift I've ever received.

Flying High Without Ever Leaving the Ground

Every year the First Graders take a field trip out to the airport to visit SIMAir and see what we can see.  This year the Firsties were so excited, they were flying high!  I invited my friend, the elementary principal, to go with us and we were literally busting a gut because of the things coming out of one kid's mouth on the way to the airport.  They were so hilarious that we had to write them down.  Good thing I brought Bev along to transcribe them!

The two boys were sitting on the very front seat of the van where there are seat belts enough for three.  But at one point during the journey one of the boys looked down and saw an unbuckled seat belt and got scared that his friend didn't have his seat belt on.  When he realized there was an extra and his friend was still buckled in he exclaimed, "You scared me!  I thought I was going to have diarrhea!  What is diarrhea anyway?"

A little bit further down the road, we were discussing the train tracks that have just been built out near the airport and I quote the same kid, "I wish I could be a train and ride on the skis of awesomeness!"  Haha!  I don't think that that thought has crossed anyone else's mind in Niamey!

Just as we were about to turn into the airport the same kid, sighed admiringly, "I love the airport!  It's my favorite place to go for inspiration.  What is inspiration?  I don't know but I just like to use that word."

Alrighty, then!  With that kind of attitude there's no way that this field trip could be a bust.  

So we were off and running getting a quick introduction to the plane, how it moves,

and sitting in the pilot's seat.  

This little one was so excited to get to see her dad at work.

Then we got to make paper airplanes and fly them.

After which it was off to the Airport Fire Station where we got to try on the Firemen's helmets, 

watch a plane take off,

see the firetruck spray it's foamy mixture,

climb inside for a visit with the driver,

and even see the jaws of life at work!

Normally, this is where our field trip ends but this year a helicopter company has set up shop next to SIMAir so we got to climb on board a pretty big helicopter.  It could seat 12 people and can be used to medically evacuate three people.  Because of the nature of their work, I promised not to post any pictures but I did get a good laugh out of the fact that this part of the field trip appeared to be a field trip for the SIMAir pilots too, all of whom climbed on board with us and proceeded to have a discussion with the helicopter pilot about autorotation.  You know it wasn't the first graders who brought that up!  Though I must say that they did sit there with rapt attention.  Their attentiveness was rewarded with a bag of American Skittles from the helicopter pilot.  A sweet end to a very fun field trip!

Ice Maker Ice Breaker

My feelings about ice are no secret.  If you hang around me long enough, you're bound to figure out that I quite like it.  Even my First Graders have picked up on that little fact.

One afternoon, out of nowhere, this little guy asked me what I would do if I had a million dollars.  Before I even had time to answer the question he said, "I know, you would buy an ice machine!"

Asked and Answered! :)

After recess one day, this kid was having trouble getting any water around the big block of ice in his water bottle so he turned to me and said, "Miss Botheras, since you're an ice expert can you break this ice out of here."  Chewing ice every recess qualifies me as an ice expert...if you have any ice problems, you know who to call.

So I was sitting across from this little one crunching on my ice when she looked across at me and inquired, "Do you like ice?" I happen to have quite the long history with her family, having grown up with her dad and his siblings.  I looked across the table at her and began to wax eloquent, "In the long history of Botherases and Cs (being her family name), the Botherases have always been lovers of ice and the Cs have never been." She probably looked at me like I was crazy but it was the truth. A water cooler in the Botheras house is chock full of ice but in the Cs house the water temperature is nowhere near as frigid.  However, being the kind and thoughtful people they are they always stock up when they know a Botheras is on the way.

Which was a bit of a concern for me when I unexpectedly had to evacuate my home and impose upon my friend Bev.  Would we survive?  There had been no time to prepare ice. Worrying, I know, but I'm happy to report I made it!

Christmas 2014

No sooner had school ended for the Christmas break than I headed out with some friends to Burkina Faso.  People always talk about Burkina admiringly because it has quite a few more stores than we do and often has treasures that we only dream about getting here in Niger.  But one thing that is not better is the road!  It was full of potholes and 70 something speed bumps by our count.  However, a change of scenery is always interesting because just a country a way, they can do things so differently.

For example, women ride bikes.  There are bike parking areas and they neatly line up motorcycles and bikes on the top of buses and vans so that the people can ride inside.

Here we all are crossing the border out of Burkina and back into Niger.

After our quick trip to Burkina, it was time to get ready for the annual Christmas with the R family.  That equals fondue and family fun - like a nativity.  I think this year might have been my favorite as the story of Jesus birth was told via song styles through the ages.  Here we have the wise cowboys serenading the baby Jesus.

We ended the evening with a reading of "Twas the Night Before Christmas" by Grandpa R to his grandchildren.  Those naughty boys in the background!

After Christmas, I returned to my apartment only to find that something unexpected and quite unwanted had come to visit - A RAT!  I was standing at my kitchen sink when I heard a rustling in the cupboards that was quite unusual so I threw open the door and came face to face with a rat.  We scared each other.  While he ran to a dark corner of the cupboard, I retreated to my sink leaving the door hanging open.  After a few minutes, I came to my senses and realized that leaving the door open was quite a silly thing to do because technically, I had him trapped if the door was closed.  So I closed it and began to consider my options.  A trap - that had been wholly unsuccessful the last time there had been a rat in my apartment.  A cat - what cat wouldn't want a free meal?  That seemed like the sure solution so I called my friend Jeannie and asked if she would kindly lend me hers.  And that was how Puddy came to visit on Boxing Day.

Look at those claws, doesn't he just look ready to kill a rat?

Was it performance anxiety?  Was it a shrew and not a rat?  We will never know.  But we can say this for sure, Puddy wasn't too keen on killing it.  The rat ran back and forth directly within the sight line of Puddy multiple times as I chased it back and forth between rooms.  Puddy sat calmly in just about this position even during the moment etched in my brain where the rat scurried across the floor, hit my green tupperware bowl and went airborne.  I've not seen or heard from the rat since that day so I'm hoping that the mere presence of Puddy scared it away for a long while.  And that my friends was Christmas 2014!

Irresponsible

Who put me in charge of this little piece of blogland anyway?  I've been an utterly irresponsible owner.  I'm not sure it's even possible to catch you up so I'm going to hit the highlights.

In October my students made Synonym Rolls and ate Cinnamon Rolls and I hung weird things on my apartment wall just to prove that I do decorate once in a while (a real highlight, I know!).

My First Graders had an awesome cheer for Spirit Week!

In November, my friend Kathy celebrated her 60th birthday.  We all enjoyed a night at Parc W and an early morning safari.  Kathy is on the left in the blue scarf.  She is an amazing lady.  My life would be minus a whole lot of laughter without her!

We had a praying mantis and a walking stick join us for the safari.  They enjoyed seeing the water buffalo with us which was a first for me!

 It was also the first time I had ever seen a baobab tree with leaves on it.  They were so colorful that it kind of reminded me of fall.

What's not to love about the dawning of a new day?

November saw the return of my students' Kindergarten teacher.  She took time to come in and sing their favorite song from Kindergarten with them and share an awesome book.  They were over the moon!  If they could, I think they would sing this song every day. :)

We also had a staff retreat during the month of November which was a huge blessing to me personally and to many of our staff.  November is also the month of our annual field day but I'm not sure where those pictures have disappeared to.

So I'm off and running trying to catch up. Hopefully, December's highlights will be right around the corner. :)

Exploring a New Corner of Africa

Sandwiched between two cancelled flights and quite a bit of drama, I had the opportunity to explore a new corner of Africa.  Back in February, I was checking out the International Christian Educator's Conference (ICEC) which was going to be held at Rift Valley Academy in Kenya.  Just recently, travel between east and west Africa has become much easier as Ethiopian Airways now flies into Niamey.  But still travelling in Africa can be sketchy and I didn't really want to go by myself so on a lark I asked my friend A if she would like to go.  I was shocked when she got excited and started looking into the cost of travel that very day!

Before long our group of two had turned into a group of six who wanted to participate in the conference and so we tried to make plans as we did want to see some of the sights in Kenya.  In the end, for a variety of reasons, we ended up with no plan.  That turned out to be a blessing when our departing flight was cancelled and we were rescheduled to fly a day later.

We stayed in the AIM guesthouse which is a wonderful place.  They were so flexible with all the last minute changes.  We were truly blessed.

One of our colleagues had a friend in Nairobi who came to visit us.  On the spot, he was able to connect us to a travel agent with whom we had begun to negotiate before our travel plans got disrupted.  So our first afternoon in Nairobi we went to see the Karen Blixen House, made famous by the movie "Out of Africa."  It was interesting, though not my favorite part of the trip.

Our party of 6 taking the tour.

The gardens were beautiful - a sight for sore eyes especially ones that don't see very much green in our own country.  I couldn't get over how tall the cactus in the background was.

 But one of my favorite things in Kenya were the curtains-blowing-in-the-breeze-no-screen windows.  Beautiful!

From the Karen Blixen House we went on to the Kazuri Bead Factory.  

This is an NGO that employs single mothers who create all kinds of beautiful works of art out of clay.  These beads, necklaces, earings and other items are then sent to places like Ten Thousand Villages in the U.S. and Canada to be sold.

Our guide showing us how the clay is pressed to remove as much moisture as possible.

The beads are shaped,

painted,

fired,

and waiting to be strung on a necklace.

This was definitely my favorite part of our first day in Nairobi.

Cheese, Chocolate & the Children's Play

 

Christmas in Niger means I get to hang with the R family for at least a full 24 hours and when it's Christmas Eve that means there will be Cheese, Chocolate and a Children's play.  I didn't take any pictures of the cheese or the chocolate that was a part of our fondue Christmas Eve celebration but I did take pictures of the Children's play.  Due to a last minute migraine, there had to be some minor adjustments to the roles but these kids are pros and the show went on.

 

The angel visits the shepherds.

 

 

You've got to love Carrot Top, the wise man.

 

 

Moe, the rabbit. filled the role of the Baby Jesus.

 

 

And the cast takes their bows.

 

 

I'm so thankful for the gift of this friendship at Christmas and every day, for that matter! 

 



Watching the Paint Peel Off the Ceiling

I have been lying around for the better part of the last two weeks watching the paint peel off my ceiling.  What can I say?  I lead an exciting life and it's not often that one could actually claim to be watching the paint peel off the ceiling but in this case, it's the truth.  I give you exhibit A...

the ceiling above my bed.  I had a bout of malaria which had me in bed for four days last week.  Then wouldn't you know it, I had to return to my prone position to ward off another round of something which included more fever and a nasty cough.  Needless to say, looking at this ceiling is getting rather old so I'm distracting myself with a silly poem...

 

and a little list of things for which I am thankful.

• a neighbor that is a nurse and a friend
• friends that bring me drinks, meals, medicine
• texts, calls and facebook notes from friends who care
• being able to listen to sermons and Christian radio online
• thermometers :)
• a good book like this one to read when I've actually felt up to reading
• a great teacher's assistant who has been willing to teach for me
• God's word that puts everything back into perspective
• and last but not least - silly poems!

Tonight I Went A Little Wild & Crazy

Tonight I went a little wild & crazy and it wasn't even my birthday!  It was J's birthday. To celebrate her first birthday in Niger she and her husband invited a Gourmanche musician to come play at her party. 

One drummer/singer...

turned into a mini-guitar player,

  

another drummer with a whole drum set - Nigerien style

and two accompanying dancers and singers.

 

Here's a little taste of the singing and dancing.

 

 

So I can't remember if the drinking or the dancing came first....

(Don't panic!  This is me we're talking about.)

 

 

Here I am drinking my first cup of Tuareg tea ever.  What?  Yep, I've lived here 9 years and it's the first time I've ever tried it.  I told you I went a little wild and crazy.

 

So then the dancing began and I only did that to be a good friend.  Never leave a friend on the dance floor alone!

 

 

It was all good until the twist began and that's when I let the birthday girl take over.

 

 

She killed it!

 

There you have it - wild, crazy & maybe a tiny bit more cultured.