My Birthday

Wow! It certainly was one I will remember. First there was a lovely card from Lea (he even remembered Valentine’s day and had bought a card with him from England). But my present! It was the sunflower I have been admiring for ages! It is so big, tacky and cheerful! Even better in the evening I found Sue had also bought me one so our parlour is really bright and cheerful now!  My birthday clothes arrived via my wonderful tailor the night before so I wore them to the office. I had a lift in and stopped at Sue’s where Esther helped me with the head gear part. I received lots of greetings in the office and Funmi got me a great cake with ‘C. Knowles’ on! Kayode from VSO was visiting us and our new VSO, Julie. He and the Nysc lady who was here to see Lea took us all out to lunch and got me a card and a present of two lovely mugs. We had a very long meeting in the afternoon but sharing the cake helped! Best was in the evening when we went round to Sue’s for a party. Everyone had made a dish and Lea made a cake with ‘Every child counts’ and a little desk on! The food was great and Sue had managed to get cauliflower which I have never had here. Ife made great moin moin and a delicious ginger cake. They all sang Happy Birthday  with the estra refrain:How old are you now! The next day I went with Emma and Ife and Julie to the market to buy cloth and Emma told me to choose a handbag which she bought for me! I now have a genuine fake Jimmy Choo bag!! They are really great people to work with! When Oozo, my neighbour found out about my birthday she made coconut rice a for us!

Really busy now doing numeracy workshops and making no cost low cost teaching aids. We had a visit from DFID –a lady named Barbara. She was impressed and the visit was a success. We all went round to Emma’s for a meal with her which was nice. My tables and chairs are now being made and some have been made bigger for juniors which is immensely rewarding! I also visited the teacher training and it was good to see them learning stuff like full circle! The problem was there were so many in a group and some had babies with them too so how they managed to concentrate I don’t know but the SSIT are trying to remedy this situation.

We ahve just had pancakes for breakfast-yum yum! Gbenga bought us a load of mangoes so I am going to make a crumble with them! Corn on the cob is in season now which is good.

Photos of birthday in next blog when I have the internet!

Thanks to all those who are still reading this!!!