Hari Raya Open Houses

Ramadhan is over and 1st day of Raya was on Monday this year. That means that we are now in the busiest party season for the locals, their Christmas in a way. They are now celebrating by decorating their houses, both with oil lamps and electrical lights; they set of huge amounts of fireworks and they hold Open Houses.

The Open Houses take part mostly during this first week after Raya. We've been lucky enough to get invited to a few, and yesterday we did two Open Houses in the afternoon.
Here is Lucas, getting ready to go and see one of his class mates (the bear is named Barnaby, he is the class bear and he is with us this weekend - hence he has been coming everywhere...):



It's really exactly what it says, an open house. Usually they set a time of three to six hours when you can come, you show up, get greeted and showed to the food, you eat, chat a little bit (if the hosts are not too busy), and leave! It's not really a party in our sense of the word, more of a kind of "walk-through", ha ha!
Here is Nathan, chatting with the host and Lucas' teacher Mr Jolly and his wife:



The kids were just playing, here Lucas with one of his friends, and Barnaby:





People come and go and come and go, here's a group shot of the kids who were at this house at the same time as us:



When you leave again, the children get small green envelopes with a few dollars in them. (The idea behind the envelope is based on the idea of Zakat, where the Muslims during Ramadhan are supposed to give money to the needy. However, today envelopes are given to every guest.) The kids were delighted, of course:





Linnea and I, dressed for the occasion in some of the Scott-Lin tunics:



We then went to another little friend of Lucas'. Same procedure there, although we actually hung around for a bit because there was so many people and we got into chatting away. You always take your shoes of before entering a Muslim house:





The kids were outside playing, it was lovely:





The Dehlis:



Ida, pretty as always! Check out the princess shoes:



Lucas and Adam:



The boys:

Curry Night

We had an impromptu celebration dinner for Nathan last night, a Curry Night for some 20 of our friends. It was really nice and relaxed, yummy food with good company.

Welcome to Brunei, the cool bag land:



Ian & Anna:



Tash & Pippa:



The main man himself:



Food:



Party continued:




We had cake, of course:


And then the party moved to the kitchen. Why does this always happen??



Misuzu & Matt:





Johnny:





Tash & Nathan reminiscing over a DVD with NZ music from their youth:





The party finished with quite a lot of 'How bizarre', 'Slice of heaven' and other songs from the past...
Happy Birthday Sweetie.

Amazed!

Today when I dropped Linnea off at school, she sat down to draw a picture. And as they do, she wanted to write her name in the corner of her sheet, so they will know who's picture it is.
She started out nicely with the 'L', that I've seen her do many times before; but then I was totally amazed, because she wrote her whole name!!
Look at this:



She's just nearly four!! Amazing!

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Nathan had his birthday yesterday. He was working, again, but we celebrated him a bit in the afternoon after work and school.
The kids had made their own birthday cards for him, and we had together picked out a present for him (a single-wine-bottle-bag-carrier-thing), because Lucas was adamant we give him "something he needs" for his birthday, as grown-ups can't get toys apparently. (News to me, Nathan seems to have enough of them though...)





I had also made him a little print that I might show here on the blog later, and put it in a frame.



We then had some chocolate cake of course, you always have cake for birthday, right? That's one of the most important parts of the celebration!
Tonight we are having some friends over for some more celebration, and curry night! Mmm!

Secret squirrel stuff

The kids and I were preparing birthday cards for Nathan before he got back from work yesterday. Real secret squirrel stuff!

Lucas was writing his all by himself:



Then he drew himself and Nathan, playing football:

I hate the heat

Yes. I hate the heat.

I know, I know - two years into our life here in the jungle, and NOW I come out with this statement. But it's true, I'm really not a hot (hot!) weather person.
I accept the heat, and I deal with living in it - because I have no choice at the moment.
I certainly don't enjoy it though, and I'm going through a period where it's driving me crazy to be sweaty and flustered all the time and I can't stand it. I hurry from AC to AC, but sometimes being outside is unavoidable, and I hate it.

Yuk.

The Picasso

The last few weeks (maybe since school begun and she has less time to roam the house..?) Linnea's kleptomaniac tendencies have seemed to ease off a bit. We've only really had one incident when Nathan was going off on an overnight and all of a sudden couldn't find his wallet - panic... until we looked in one of Linnea's bags...
So, not as bad as it was actually.

It seems like she has found a new little hobby though. One that has lead to all the pens and crayons of this house now having been confiscated or hidden away:
It started a while back, with her drawing on her little furniture in the playroom, and got a bollocking for that. She (& Daniel to be honest) then drew on the dining room wall in his house, another BIG talking to; and she has also drawn on some other toys - well, too bad, it's her own things.

But, the other day whilst driving home from a birthday party, she and her little friend Gemma got the crazy idea to draw on the inside of the car door with some new pens they had got in the party bag..!!! I can tell you, neither Mummy or Daddy or Gemma's parents were very impressed with that! (It could be wiped off, luckily!)

Today, we discovered drawings on five different walls of the living room/dining room... FIVE! Boy, did we get crossed!!! (Also with the amah actually, because it had apparently happened this morning, and she had "forgot" to tell us... Not easy to tell someone off 12 hours later.)
So, time for another speech about "We only draw on PAPER and nothing else than PAPER". Then she had to help Rhoda to clean up and luckily that too could be removed, after some very hard scrubbing.
She did tell me though, that she had done it because she wanted to make our house pretty...

Go All Blacks!

This afternoon the whole simpang gathered to watch the All Blacks-Wallabies rugby game. All of our neighbours are either Aussies or Kiwis (with of course a Swede and a Japanese thrown in) so game was ON!

Us adults watched the game at the house next door, and here in our house we left all the kids, with the amahs..! There was 10 adults over there, and 9 kids here. We really enjoy having such great neighbours, and all the kids play so nicely together, no matter the differences in ages. They were jumping on the trampoline, riding their bikes, watching a bit of movie, playing Lego, running around... they had a blast!

So did we, with some snacks and wine - and especially as we (well, the All Blacks) won the game! Yay!
It was probably thanks to the eager supporters:

On on!

Well, here it is, my 50th run wine goblet!
I'm going to bring it to every hash to have my after-run drink in from now on!



The text says:
Brunei Hen House Harriers
Boel Watson
50 runs
15-09-09
On on

I'm Mrs Watson

The kids in school all have one specialist session a week doing PMP (=Physical Motor Program (?)). It's held by the PE teacher, but - she doesn't have any assistants to do these lessons. So she has asked around amongst the parents if anyone had some time to spare, to help out. She really needs all the help she can get as the very young kids needs to be supervised to do all the movements and exercises properly.
I've volunteered for 2 hours a week, 2 periods with the two Year 2 classes on Thursdays. Yesterday was my first time.

At one stage I told a little boy off slightly, and he looked at me with a big question mark all over his face saying "And who are you??!"
Well, from now on, I'm Mrs Watson - teacher's assistant!

Yesterday our room was double booked so for one session we had to take the kids out to play on the outside equipment. I'd never noticed before, but as soon as the kids came out to play, two maintenance guys came and sat down on chairs between the playground and the jungle. Just sat there, and read the newspaper.
I asked the teacher who they were and she said they were on "monkey-duty"... Apparently the monkeys come down to the cantine and rummage through the garbage bins, and sometimes also wander around the school grounds. So - there are "monkey-guards", to keep and eye and make sure they don't come near the children!
Ha ha - what would be the equivalent back home? "Squirrel-guards"? Ha ha!

Nose-ear-nose-ear...

There is a lot of activity here on the blog at the moment because there is really a lot going on right now in our life in Brunei.
The kids are thriving in school and it's a joy to see. Both of them happily gets up in the morning and looks forward to their day. They come home full of smiles and lets us know all they have been doing. Both of them seem really happy with the extra activities we have signed them up for, and with everything else that is happening for them.

On Linnea's 2nd swimming lesson yesterday, they practised their "breathing to the side". It was only four of them this time, and they floated around for a bit on this mat, alternating putting their face down in the water and blowing bubbles (nose) with laying their head on the side to breathe (ear). They were so cute!



They also tried a dive for the first time yesterday. I might have started them from sitting position, but then again... I'm no swim coach, what do I know? Here is Linnea's first attempt, a bit of a tummy splash, but with time and practise she will soon get this too!

Pass the parcel

Another couple of parties this week. On Wednesday Linnea went to her little friend Adam's 4th birthday party. They had two pools in the garden, so the kids were well entertained - they also had a bit of a treasure hunt and the usual pass-the-parcel etc:




Today it's another party, for one of Lucas' friends - and then we are having another long weekend, four days off now, for Hari Raya (=end of Ramadan). Lovely!

But Mummy!

I picked up Linnea from Kindy today, and whilst gathering all her belongings and emptying her tray, I asked her to go and get her lunchbox and water bottle.
She was already holding her hairband in one hand and a drawing in the other, so she looked at me, rolling her eyes, going:
- But Mummy! I only have TWO hands!!!

I wonder where she has picked that up from..?

First football training

Today it was Lucas' turn to have his first ASA (apart from swimming) - football.
He did try football 1 1/2 years ago, at an external club, not in school; but wasn't so keen on it then because there was so many big kids and he got a bit scared. Now he's not only older and bigger, today was only for kids the same age, or just a year older than him - and he was really keen!
Mostly he was proud of his brand new football shoes..!

It's Lucas in the white shirt, green hat and red shorts & socks.





And after her swimming lesson, here is Lucas' biggest supporter:



He thought it was great fun playing football today, but - it wasn't long enough!! Ha ha, keen was the word!

System overload - more ballerinas

I just have to put up this little clip too, from the first ballet lesson yesterday. It's of the little ballerinas doing bunny jumps across the room. First you'll see two of Linnea's friends, and then it's her turn.
She is trying really hard... but I though she got a bit system overload, too much information... It's not much bunny hopping going on - she rather looks like something out of Monty Python's funny walks...
So, so cute!