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Monday, March 10, 2014

Weekend Starting 7 March

On Friday morning the Mwadui ladies met at Marita's home for a tea party. We also gathered to catch up since we'd had our tea party on Friday 13th December last year.

After delicious tea and eats, Marita gave us an update on what had been decided on at the previous tea party/meeting. The play park which is being built for the local children is well under way and by end of April all ladies will be called upon to help with painting and manufacturing toys and other [educational] objects for the little ones.

At the previous tea party, the interest was great to start Zumba Dance Classes . As it says on the site, "Ditch the Workout - Join the Party!" Marita confirmed that one of the sheds on the client camp (situated behind our pottery studio) and classes will commence during May this year. Should be fun!

While waiting for all the ladies to arrive (Africa time kicks in at times like this and it's not unusual for people to arrive anything up to an hour late for an event), I wandered around taking photos of the ladies already seated in Marita's garden.  
My pottery mentors, Amanda and Tilla, flank our school teacher expat, Louise

Ce moi with Amanda on my right and Tilla on my left (Louise took this photo!)

30% of the guests which had arrived on time
The Mzungus and the Minority. From left, Tilla, Marita, Jo, Amanda and Louise

Now as promised, in protest with my blogger friend, Lori, from Western New York, here is my bloom. With this protest, we're hoping to hurry the spring along in their state! Ironically, the flower which I photographed on my birding trip through the bush yesterday (when we spotted several sunbird flying into the clump) is called "Wild Dagga" and actually heralds the beginning of autumn/fall in Africa. 

"Dagga" is the South African name for cannabis. However, this plant, Wild Dagga is known as Leonotus Leonaris . It's a native shrub common in Southern and East Africa and not an illegal substance at all. 

When I downloaded this particular photo, I noticed a fluttering of sunbird on the left! 
 Leonotis Leonaris with sunbird flash on the left


I wish you all a wonderful week ahead! 
 

5 comments:

  1. Great photos of everyone. Lovely to see so many ladies of the community who are interested in doing good works for the children. Hugs.

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  2. You girls really know how to throw a tea party

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  3. JO, looks like a nice tea party.. The play park will be nice for the children and I am sure the adults will love the zumba classes. Lovely ladies and photos. Enjoy your new week ahead!

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  4. That was quite a tea party! The Zumba classes should be fun. You are such a sport for posting the flowers. We still have snow on the ground, but the temperature has been rising all night. Melting today with a big storm on the way for Wednesday. A never ending winter.

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  5. Tea parties and ladies' lunches are always such fun! It looks like you all had a great time. Our youth pastor's 13-year-old daughter's name is Marita. I'd not heard that name before, so your friend Marita is the second Marita I've heard of.

    I love that you and your friends do these projects for the local children. What fun to work together to provide fun for the kids!

    We are in a terrible drought here in California...went for 54 days during the "rainy" season without any rain and this is the third year in a row with hardly any rain. We've finally gotten several days of rain, but we are still only at about 25% of normal rainfall, so there will be strict water rationing this summer.

    (((Hugs))) from Pat

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