Crazy Month #2 - Eisteddfod 2014

As crazy as February was, March was crazier!  It was our family's second experience with the Eisteddfod Music Festival that I wrote about last year. This three week long festival was a time consuming and yet wonderful experience.  The first week, Arianna had students who particpated (and did quite well, I might add):

The second week, the HIS orchestra particpated and got an Honors (the highest distinction) AND got to share the cup for the best orchestra:

The third week, both Abigail AND the girls' string quartet - Sixteen Strings - received Honors. As a result, Sixteen Strings was invited to play in the final concert - which is a showcase concert featuring a sampling of the best of the 2,000 entries.  To top it off, Abigail received the Di Wright Cup for the best string player under 16.

Sixteen Strings out celebrating after their Honors performance!

That's all for now - hope to catch up with some more updates of this past month before April is over...

Couple of Crazy Months - February

Life has been a bit of a whirlwind since my last post.  February was spent getting ready for a major musical event in early March:

It was a great opportunity to get back into recital playing, but since I hadn't learned a new sonata in over 20 years it seemed like perhaps I should have started with a more modest goal of performing a piece I already knew (our pianist and I both learned the Prokofiev Cello Sonata).  Of course, Abigail also learned a new piece so I had a double role as performer and as coach.  Fortunately, we had some wonderful people to work with and the concert was well attended.  I'm hoping we get to do some more concerts here in Harare but I'm not sure when that will happen!

What's in a name?

Zimbabwe is one of those countries where people name their children with a word.  It is actually a good way to learn some Shona vocabulary if you can remember some of the meanings of the names.  I've finally gotten used to some of the Shona names and they sound very familiar (Tarisai, Rutendo, Mufaro and Chipo which mean: look, thanks, joy and gift).  But a friend of mine has been collecting English names of local people which I hope you find as interesting and/or amusing as I do.  The first chart is names of people that she has personally met.   The second one is names that she has heard but has not personally met people with the names.

Beauty	Blessing	Bright	Brilliant	Carryon
Charity	Clever	Constance	Courage	Cute
Doubt	Effort	Evidence	Faith	Forget
Freedom	Friday	German	Gift	Givemore
Grace	Gracious	Harmony	Hope	Innocent
Joyce/Joice	Joy	Justice	Killer	Lactogen
Learnmore	Lovejoy	Loveless	Lovemore	Loveness
Luckmore	Marvelous	Mercy	Moreblessing	Never
Nono	Oneday	Onward	Patience	Precious
Prosper	Prudence	Rejoice	Shepherd	Talent
Textual	Trust	Truth	Trymore	Wonder
Wisdom	Wish	Zebra

Anyway	Benevolence	Best	Blessy
Cigarette	Confidence	Denounce	Fortune
Godknows	Habitual	Jealousy	Life
Loveday	Lucky	Matches	Member
Memory	Menass (Menace?)	Nomatter	Obey
Passmore	Perpetual	Reason	Righteous
Smiley	Superman	Takemore

Valentine's Day

The girls were busy with social events for Valentine's Day this year:

Abigail with a friend and her friend's sister, all ready to go.

One of the HIS families (who have a very large house) invited the entire middle school to their house for a dance.  And just about all of the kids went.  Since we are friends with the family who hosted, John and I actually went to the same party - only later because we had to drop off Arianna at her event - combined youth group (two churches) where they had food and were supposed to dress "formal" or in Valentine's colors.  A good time was had by all!

Taste of the Nations 2014

Last year our church started a new tradition to celebrate Valentine's Day:  A Taste of the Nations.  The idea is for everyone to bring food to share that represent the many cultures that are present in our church.  I enjoyed the variety of food (the Israeli table was my favorite), and the evening ended with a group from a local line dance club leading a large group in several dances.

This is our pastor, joining in the fun.

This photo was a bit blurry, but I loved the look on Arianna's face.  She had a great time!

John and Abigail were tired and left early so they missed the fun of dancing.  I did get in there when they did the Electric Slide, which brought back memories from an earlier church - I'm wondering if any of you reading this remember what I'm talking about??

December Highlights

OK, so now it's February but hopefully not too late to give a couple of highlights from our December visit to the US.  We often hear surprise from people when we tell them how long we are staying in the US on a trip (as in not), but even I have to agree that this last trip was just TOO short.  We were there for less than two weeks, which was tough considering how long the trips were and how much jet lag we had with the 7 hour time difference (the short days in the US didn't help).  Still, we managed to cram in a college visit (Messiah College in PA) and a 2 hour violin lesson.  Other highlights from the trip were:

Participating in the Annual Pierogi Making party (which are then eaten on Christmas Eve - not at the party)

The debut of the Cousin Quartet on Christmas Eve - here with an additional cousin joining for the grand finale.

Celebrating John's birthday when we weren't traveling (fairly rare event).  And getting to do it while visiting his parents, who we are happy to report are doing very well!

A day in London when we had a very long layover on our trip back (which included two overnight flights - did I mention they were long trips?).  We were able to visit the British Museum and eat at a little Italian restaurant which was much better than sitting at the airport all day.

So, despite the fact that we started our trip with a four hour delay in Harare and as a consequence, our luggage arrived about 4 days late in the US and that it was too short, it was still good to get to spend some time with family in December!

Arianna

Our oldest daughter is certainly growing up.  Zimbabwe has been a great experience for both girls, but it is particularly satisfying to see the happier version of Arianna.   Here are just a few things that she enjoys about living in Zimbabwe:

Having friends over to make cookies in December (and being able to reorganize her school schedule so she can do it when she wants since their school holidays are different from the American ones)

Playing in a string quartet (here they were playing carols at the local shopping area). Last week she rejoined the HIS orchestra.  And because she's considering majoring in Music Education, she just started taking piano lessons.  

Teaching students.  Here she is accompanying one of her students at the Old Folks' Home in December.  I was impressed that it was mostly Arianna's students who volunteered to play solos (most of the concert was group performances).

In December Arianna kept busy with Christmas gift projects

On the weekends she teaches Sunday School (first grade) and now enjoys two youth groups - one meets on Friday nights and she just started going to a dinner/bible study for older teens that meets in a woman's house on Saturdays.  She sees a lot of the same kids there that she met at WOT (Week of Transformation - basically a week long Christian day camp in August).  

So, between school (which is going well) and activities, she is a busy young lady (and usually happy which makes her mom happy!).