Guava, Bunnies, ect…

While this is a travel blog and its purpose is to tell about what we are doing, it can get a bit boring to tell all the day to day stuff, not to mention impossible for us to write it all. However, there are a few day to day things that have been happening recently that I feel need some special attention due to the levels of happiness they have been inducing.

Serena has recently discovered the fruit guava at the markets and has been buying it and putting it in all sorts of yummy things. The favourite has been mushed up guava in citron Fanta. Upon first arriving at the Tyrrell’s House they asked if they should stock up on any particular flavour of Fanta. Not being a soda drinker since adolescence and with a particular dislike for Fanta I confidently said “No thank you. I will probably never have a single Fanta while I am here“. During dinner the first night Jessi tried a flavour I had never heard of before, citron. I thought I would try a sip out of curiosity and to my amazement and the necessary fulfillment of irony I loved it. Since then I have been holding back to only have one a day. So Serena comes along and starts putting crushed up guava in it and what is a girl to do. It has become the thing that comes to mind if asked what I would like for dinner and the thing I first want after the fullness of lunch wears off and definitely the first thing I want once it is served with dinner. I have a hard time even noticing the food on the table while trying to attack the drink with the ferocity of a baby tiger fighting to get its turn at dinner. Special daily event #1: Guava Fanta drinks

On the first day of arriving at the orphanage, we got the tour and were told that there were rabbits in the wood cages in the cow pen. We did not look at them just then but I made a mental note to go back and look at them later and maybe hold one if I were to be so lucky. So about a week or more passed before I went back down and what I discovered were not rabbits, but a few bunnies with 12 baby bunnies!!! They were at their ideal cuteness size and they would gather all together in a big furry pile that resembled an entirely new bunny with ears and tails sticking out everywhere. Isaac said it was like a bunny voltron, which started a whole ordeal involving art and 80’s cartoons reminiscing, a google search and a lot of laughing. Turns out there is actually a bunny voltron. We were not the first idiots to think of it, or embarrassingly, to go to the lengths to draw one up. Anyway, enough about bunny voltron, the baby bunnies are like the peanut butter to my jelly, or the soup to my salad, or the wine with my cheese, or… Ok you get the point, I love them!!! Whatever level you are thinking I love these bunnies on right now, just multiply that times ten. Basically in the words of Mort from Madagascar, “You hate them compared to how much I love them”. Special Daily Event #2: Baby Bunnies (yes, it is a daily event)

I have recently discovered the joy of the original purpose of IPods. I got my apple IPod as a birthday gift and being technologically backwards I left it in its case for almost 7 months, trying to get up the nerve to figure out what to do with it and how to use it. Upon finally doing so right before leaving on this trip, I immediately fell in love with it and all that it could do. It was like having a laptop with you in your pocket. I was excited about everything it could do and was downloading all these free apps and listening to Pandora radio on it, ect ect ect, but I never downloaded any music on it. I left on my trip in such a panic that I didn’t have time to think about it or figure out how to do it, not to mention pay for any music. So I kept a list of music that I eventually wanted to download and last week I finally got the opportunity to download it all. It has been so great to have music and I am turning into one of those angsty teenagers who has to have their ear piece in at all times with some sort of input constantly going in. However, my very favourite part of having my new music is that the 60 kids here discovered that I have music. Jessi is always saying how music attracts Africans like light attracts bugs. It is so true and so cute. As soon as the kids see I have the iPod and speaker in my hand I suddenly have a crowd following me, with more coming out of the woodworks all the time adding to the following. (this comes in handy when trying to get kids to come to English class). They love pop music and they love anything with a strong rhythm, so thanks to Omar, I have a plethora of pop music and top hits. Not that it really matters because they rarely get past Shakira’s “Waka Waka”, or the “Wavin’ Flag” song from the world cup, or Iyaz’s song “Replay”. I have spent whole afternoons with the kids jammed in around me, like the baby bunnies and bunny voltron, just listening to music. We are all so jammed in that I can barely see the IPod or move to change the songs. If the kids start shifting around too much I actually start to fall over because my upright-ness is dependent on the kids shoved in around me. They are so sad when we have to finally disband for dinner and they all leave with a grateful thank you. I love the feeling of being jammed into a ‘person-voltron’ just for the purpose of hearing music coming from a tiny crappy speaker. The first time I brought the IPod to library time and Shakira’s song came on, suddenly all the kids in the library started singing along, many dancing (cause that’s what they do in Africa), and bumps appeared all along my arms and I just wanted to hug them all as a whole body, like a hen with her chicks. Special Daily Event #3: Listening to music with the kids

I know I have already talked about this but every morning so far, without fail, I have gotten up to an already baked breakfast by Serena. For example, we have had homemade cinnamon rolls, french toast, eggs and toast, homemade rolls, the most amazing zucchini bread and pancakes, just to name a few of the things she makes for us regularly. This woman is a super woman. I don’t know how she does it, but every morning she does. She cooks for 5 of us and her 4 year old son and it is always delicious. The other day I woke up later than the others and when I came into the kitchen I saw that she had left me a note in the cinnamon roll dish that said “Good Morning Danielle” with the last two cinnamon rolls waiting for me. So, without too much ado, this definitely makes my special daily events list. Special Daily Event #4: Serena’s Breakfasts (and cooking in general)