Easter

We had a really lovely Easter this year.

Easter started for us with the Easter Production at "CAMS"- Esther and Ben's school. The younger children sang some great songs for us, with Ben and the Nursery + Reception class :

and Esther with her classmates:

The Secondary pupils of the school acted in a fabulous play depicting the miracles of Jesus, such as healing a  lame man when his friends lowered him down on a mat through the roof ...

...then the events leading up to Easter- from the betrayal of Jesus, his arrest, crucifixion and then the resurrection. It was beautifully portrayed through great acting and some moving music and singing from the pupils. Joel came along to watch with me and we arrived early enough to get Front Row seats and have a brilliant view of the action!

Before the show began, the Headteacher announced some winning pupils who have received certificates for various competitions this term. I was delighted when our little Esther was called up front to receive a certificate for a poem she had written in an English Writing Competition! She came up to stand next to pupils from the older classes and proudly held her certificate for the Standard One (Year 1) prize:

Easter itself was extra-exciting, as our recent UK visitors had left us with real Easter eggs, plus we has 2 very egg-exciting parcels from England full of wonderful Easter treats! There are no Easter eggs on the shelves of Dodoma's shops, so it was a special treat to have real English chocolate and eggs to add to our Easter celebrations!

 One parcel had some fab paints, brushes and Easter stamps inside, so we had fun with these, painting hard-boiled eggs for a topical display:

 There were some very cute, knitted chicks in the other parcel, hiding tasty chocolate eggs under their yellow knitted wings, so we made a sparkly Easter nest for them- and rounded off our Easter activities with my attempt at home-made hot cross buns:

 I have to say, these hot-cross buns turned out to be rather tasty, which was a relief. Last time I had tried to make hot-cross buns was 8 years ago, in my pre-bread-baking days ( ie. pre-Africa!!). On that occasion, Andrew had come home from work and exclaimed, "Great! I see you've made rock cakes!" (!!!)

On Easter day, we went to the morning service at Dodoma's cathedral. It was very busy, with extra capacity seating provided outside under a canvas...

 ...and Tanzanian-style decorations inside, especially set up to mark the day of celebration, complete with flashing fairy lights:

We hope you all had a Happy Easter time too!