Hedgehogs, solar cookers and pond water!

Hello!




Look who we found in our garden the other day! Isn't he cute! He's a pygmy desert hedgehog. After showing it to all our neighbours we considered keeping it as a pet with Braveheart (our tortoise) who has quite a large area. In the end we decided not to, thinking that he might actually be female and have children to look after hidden away somewhere....





At the moment, we are both very busy with school work. Next week Ruth is doing the BAC blanc (mock exams), there will be 6 written exams: philosophy, economy, maths, history/geography, english and Spanish and has 2 orals the week after in english (I guess that will go well) and in spanish. I only have one written in french on Friday and an oral in a few weeks. I'm also trying to get my project on solar energy in Chad finished in time for the next holidays! I made the tyre solar cooker that you can see in the picture (on the left) with my friends and we've been to visit the centre of the company which made the other one next to it (PROMOSOL, a swiss/tchadian organisation).
I've also done an experiment to see if it is possible to purify water using the sun's rays. We left one clear plastic bottle and two painted ones (black and white) in the sun for a day and then gave our specimens to a hospital in town yesterday to see if we managed to kill all the bacteria. In the picture you can see me collecting water from a pond on the way home from school with Dago our chauffeur...

Thankfully the heat has come back so I can carry out all my experiments properly! It is still quite cold at night though as we discovered a few nights ago, waking up shivering after thinking we'd be fine without covers.

Just one last thing yesterday Ruth found out that she's has got an offer from Liverpool Hope University to study Theology and Religious Studies! We're very excited and hoping to hear from the other three (York St John's, Exeter and Chester) soon!

Hope you are all well, love Ruth and Rebecca

Holidays, Parties and 14 degrees

Hello! As a New Year's resolution, Ruth and I have decided to write 'postcard' blogs based on pictures... here is a rather a long one to start off with!

Here is Tabitha preparing for the Christmas party at the hospital which I think you’ve all heard about on my parent’s blog! She is making "kak" with Rebecca and Odette our house helps....in very large quantities as you can see! I helped out a bit as it was during the holidays but it didn't seem to make much difference as it's quite hard work and I'm not very skilled though I had progressed after a couple of hours of plaiting the dough! It was all then cooked in hot oil on a wood fire out the back of the house and given out with meat and coke the next day.

This is Ruth and Joe, our neighbours with a tray of freshly baked buns for a very different party: our end of term football tournament at school, everyone had asked me to make my delicious 'English' cakes! Ruth and I played the guitar and flute with a group of friends and surprisingly in the end, the youngest team won!

Here is another party, this time a birthday of one of our friend's little brothers. We spent a morning dancing, talking in broken Arabic and then taking pictures which I will print next week in town! We were given delicious mutton and would have stayed longer to eat a proper meal but we were going to Bitkine the next day and had to pack!

Unfortunately, after 3 hours in the car on the way to Bitkine, we heard some funny noises and the car eventually came to a stop just as I was going to sleep! We were by a small village and thankfully had phone signal! Dad rang Isaac who contacted Dago, the hospital driver who takes us to school every day and he set off to rescue us. We then had a four hour wait ahead of us. Dad went to greet the village chief who very kindly offered us a mat! So we sat and played the bean game before eating bread and cheese, a rare treat to be 'forced' to eat so much cheese at one time! Afterwards we sat in the car as it got cooler and watched Beautiful Lies which finished just as Dago arrived at nine O'clock! We then parked the car in the village and drove the next four hours to Bitkine, arriving at 1 O'clock in the morning to an amazing sky full of stars... and bed!

Here is a sunset the next day, we rested and generally relaxed for a week at Bitkine. We went on some brilliant walks in the mountains that were slightly smaller than the ones in the photo! On the New Year’s Day walking down a small rocky hill, Mum slipped and discovered that a slide had been polished in the rock! We all had a few rides, it worked surprisingly well! We afterwards saw children going down an even bigger one on sacks, yes; you can go sledging in Chad!

Now, we are back in N'djamena and have restarted school and work... Ruth is doing a four hour philosophy test this afternoon and I am enjoying the slight rest from homework offered by the first week and working on my TPE project on solar energy for March. One last picture: this is our cat Farid who has been wrapping up against the cold much like us! Someone said temperatures have reached 14 degrees Celsius at night and we are all feeling it! After the warmth of Bitkine (the rocks apparently absorb the heat of the sun), Guinebor seems very cold, especially this year. Fortunately we brought a few jumpers back from England and are (just about) able to cope so long as no one puts the air conditioning on at school!

Hope you are all coping with the freezing temperatures of England which I keep explaining to my friends who can't stand anything below 20 degrees! "No, this really isn't cold!" I don't know how Ruth will cope next year!

Hope you are all well and had a great Christmas, Happy New Year! love Rebecca.