No meeting this week but a nice christmas party

Author : Helene

No meeting this week. I was too busy to help preparing a party at school . We decorated the school with snowmen, christmas tree etc... it was nice.

The children sang some Christmas carols, we had hot wine and crèpes and despites the hot weather the spirit of the hollydays was there.

The children are on vacations until January th 7th.

We've seen the snow in Bethesda, It seems you are going to have a lot this year ! Who's going to go sledding tomorrow ? Have fun !!!!

First aid badge

Author : Nolwenn

Hello,

THANK YOU MRS CANNON FOR THE BADGES, we received them and we are very happy !

This week we started the first aid badge. We learned what to do in case of an accident happens (who to call, what to say etc ...).

Malo is playing a wounded person after an accident and I'm trying to comfort him, waiting for an ambulance.

Talking about safety 2 weeks ago my mom and I saw an accident. A car went flying in front of us. The car made a hole in the President's wall !!!!!!!! It was scary. The driver was wearing his seatbelt but he was still bleeding a lot. We brought him to the hospital because the ambulance was not coming.

P.S ALWAYS WEAR THE SEATBELT !!!!!

Christmas is coming so we made a nativity with salted dough.

I did Mary and Joseph and two shepherds and sheeps, Malo did the donkey and the Ox, Ewen did baby Jesus some sheeps and shepherds.

Lena did the Three Kings (or wisemen ?) and sheeps

We are in the middle of the summer so it does not look like Christmas. And you ? Is the snow still there ? (Clare told be that it snowed on Saturday - Lucky you !!!)

Reading books

Hi all,

We hope you had a great time at camping !!! We are jealous, we have not been able to go yet because of gaz (petrol) shortage.

Internet is not working very well, we have not be able to write last week. Sorry !

The rainy season just started. Do you know that in the southern emisphere the summer holidays just started. Children won't have school until january. It's summer ! But, at the American school and at the French school, students follow the same calender as in the US and or as in France. But because the weather is wet wet wet and hot hot hot, we will have 3 weeks for Chrismas !

We started a new service project : we are going to read stories every wednesdays to orphans at their orphanage. We went once to visit them. Their "school" is more a shelter than a school. They have nothing but 3 benches, a broken black board and ... snakes outside the school (last week there was a cobra).

Mom is going to France on wednesday until december 1st. We won't have any meeting until she comes back. See you in 2 weeks !!!

Craft and Halloween

Author : Nolwenn

Hello,
This week we did the "Making Hobbies" badge. We started (some times ago ...) to knit a scarf. We are not in a hurry, we have 3 years to finish it !!!! I also made my own costume for Halloween: an Hawaïn skirt.

Here is what you need to do it :
4 big trash bags
1 shoe lace
1 hair band if you want to make a haiband.
Cut stripes from the plastic bags (the width). You obtain like a loops,
Cut the loops you obtain a stripes (folded in 2)
Attach the stripes to the shoe lace with a knot
We went trick or treating to the american school. Lena was a Candy corn, Ewen a cow-boy and Malo a pirate.
We were about 200 children. 16 famillies decorated their cars and had candies. We went from cars to cars to get candies. It was not that much candies but it was FUN !

PS : our cats caught a rat and put it in the door steps (it was dead) ! I had to bring it back to a bush in the backyard yuckee !

Pets, animals, wild animals ....

Hello,

We have two cats Garfield and Kariba. We adopted them when their "familly" moved back to Germany. We are very happy to have them, to feed them every day and to take care of them.
We went to the vet today and yesterday.
We went yesterday because it was Garfield and Kariba’s check up. We talked to the vet, we watch her taking care of the cats (flu shot, rabbies shot etc...)
It is very important to vaccinate pets, especially here. The other day, two boys from the american school played with a dog at the vet office. The dog bit one of the boys and the boys was evacuated to South Africa. The dog had rabbies.

Today we had to go back to the vet because this morning Garfield and Kariba fought with a snake and we thought Kariba might have been bitten!! It was a small brown one, I haven’t looked if it was poisonous or not. Kariba stayed with the vet the whole morning and received more shots ... She is sleepy now but fine.


Talking about pets… in our yard we have snakes,ciccadas (our cats sometimes eat them),a toooooooooooon of lizards and a beehive hidden in a tree.
We sometimes see chameleons and huuuuuuuuuuuuuuuge birds.

Yesterday Ewen looked at baby birds in their nest . They were very cute until they woke up and wanted food . They were opening there mouths very wide and were chirping . We were very happy because we saw baby birds chirping in front of us. They were very cute also because they were eating mashed bread with water off our fingers. They tickled. On all of there body they had like 2 feathers.

We will write later, we have to go now because our CONTAINER is coming right now, we are going to have our toys, clothes, table, bed etc ... HIP HIP HIP HOURAY !

Bye,
Lena and Nolwenn

"And 1-2-3 and 1-2-3 !"

Author Lena

Today we completed the swimming badge (for me : water sport).
It is a privelege to live in a hot country because we swim in the pool a lot. Plus, it is nice because there is no "adult swim".

we do swimming races every saterday : we do not compete against each other but as a team. The team gets better every week-end !

As a project I teach every saturday a water aerobics class. Look at them go!
I found the movements on the internet. I also organized games for the swimmers.

P.S : the pool is less deap because we had no water since thursday and we used the pool water to wash the dishes and do the laundry!!

Meeting with a zambian troop

Author : Nolwenn

This Monday we didn’t have our meeting because we waited until today to meet other girls scout.
Mom told us we were going to meet another troop presented by an American lady. We took the car and … we got lost in a compound (a township), just outside Lusaka. A compound is a lot of small houses stuck together and many people live there. The road was really rocky. Finally we found our way to an orphanage where the troop was.

I was scared and Lena too because it was totally different from girls scout with you.

The scouts were very nice. We were surprised because boys and girls were together at the same time.

We recited the scout promise together. We talked about safety on the road. We sang African songs, clapped and danced.At the beginning I was really scared and I didn’t want to do it.

I found three friends there.

We played on a very high playground made of wood, tires, ropes, ladders and metal bars (homemade by the children themselves and adults also).

I hope we will come back to see them. Actually, they proposed us to meet in few weeks and do activities together. I’m happy because we found a troop here. :-)
Nolwenn.

Hiking in the savannah

Sunday we wanted to camp but we had to cancel. Instead we went hiking.

We saw different kinds of animals totally different from the one we saw in Bethesda.

First, we took a tour in a Safari van. We saw Giraffes, zebras, Roans (a kind of Antilope) and some wild pigs.

Then we ate lunch (a wild pig went very close to us, less than one yard !)

After eating we went hiking in the savannah and met some zebras, impalas and roans. We stopped at a lake, hoping to see crocodiles. We didn't see any. Maybe next time

Make your own badge

This week we have been working on our "Make your own badge" called the "Moving badge".
The requirements we invented are the following :
- say good bye to your friends
- carry your own luggages
- smile even when you are tired after the journey (:-)
- make your own bed with clothes and sleep on the floor.
- eat on the floor
- wash your clothes in the sink
- make new friends (but keep the older)

First meeting

Since we are in Paris until wednesday we went to the Eiffel tower to open the first meeting of the season. After the openings we decided the activity of the day : a field trip to the Tuilerie Garden (It's more a park than a garden).

As part of the "Find your way" patch we studied the Metro map. After that we took the metro to go to the Tuileries.

One of the activity we liked there was Poney riding. The other one is to play with sailing boat in the bassin at the center of the garden. To play you need a boat (3 feet long) and a stick. You put the boat on the water and push it with the stick. The wind makes it sail. You just need to go around the bassin and push the boat so it sails across the bassin.