2008, Bedfordshire, UK

2007, Cotonou, Benin

Quite a few to be seen, I should say (not least of all that Micah does not have bare feet in the first!) Yes, this week our three kids started school in the UK; for Micah it was the first time ever that he’d attended school in this country and the experience was just a tad overwhelming to start with. The girls are at middle school, which is new for them, but there are some children they remember from 4 years ago.

The main differences for them at school here will be:

* Larger classes
* A wider range of teachers
* French lessons will be a doddle
* No outdoor swimming
* Having to wear a tie
* The subjects PSHE, RS and DT, none of which they did in Cotonou.

I was trawling through old photos, and here’s their first ever day at school in Benin (2004):

Don’t they look cute?! And here’s start of school 2005,
just after Ruth’s ceiling fan accident:

If you’ve just started a new school or are about to go to university, I wish you the very best - may you settle in quickly and begin enjoying the new adventure!

Other News…

* Rob’s on an ethnomusicology course with SIL, studying Analysis of non-Western music, a very useful skill to have on the field.
* Lois is planning some French study in the coming months, hopefully in France.
* The kids are looking forward to a trip to Woburn Safari Park today (Sat) to celebrate Grandma Pauline’s birthday.
* Rob heads back to Togo in October to teach a two-week ethnomusicology course.

Thanks for reading!

Of course, we didn’t have summer parties in 2005 or 2007 as we were in Benin then (and what’s the point of celebrating the nice warm weather there?!) Click here to see a post about the 2006 summer party.

It has become the norm of late to have a BOUNCY CASTLE for the party - lots of fun for kids of all sizes! Here are some party pics:

Another tradition has been live jazz in the garden whenever possible. This year, we had a jazz quartet with Gary Wood on trumpet, Fergus Milne on trombone and yours truly on piano. We were then joined by the legendary Michael Meadowcroft on clarinet, who Rob met and played with in Benin. (Michael, formerly a Liberal MP, even appears in Wikipedia! Have a look here).

This year we beat our summer party world record! Not in number (although 92 guests was very close) but in age range. The eldest guest - “Auntie Grace” is 96 years old whereas the youngest was Toby, who is about one year old. Here they are:

So an age range of 95 years. Wow! We’re planning to have a Summer Party next year, probably in June. Watch this space…

I decided to take August off blogging as we were on holiday for most of the time and I NEVER take my laptop on holiday with me! Now September is here, there’ll be new posts on reverse culture shock, Baker activities, African memories and future plans, not forgetting Trivia Question of the Week

Watch this space. New post with photos coming very soon!

Answer to last week’s question. The Lybian flag is the only one in the world which is one colour, being entirely green (although Nigeria’s is close, being the only two-coloured tricolore which goes: green-white-green).

We made it back to England just in time to celebrate his 70th birthday. Incredible - where have the years gone? Although he’s technically retired after around 40 years as a Baptist Minister, Dad still preaches once or twice a month and enjoys walking, sudokus and extra strong mints!

We had a lovely tea there and it was good to see my ‘almost brother’ Clive Rahn, to whom we bequeathed a Beninese zem shirt, which he liked very much:

As a special treat, we took Dad to this prom concert at the Royal Albert Hall last Monday evening, which he enjoyed. Beethoven’s 5th was monumental, but Elliott Carter’s oboe concerto was a tad modern for his liking.

Finally, to help Dad celebrate his big day, we gave him this apt badge to cheer him up:

That’s all for now. The blog is officially ‘on holiday’ for the whole of August, so there will be no new posts until September. However, there are plenty of archives you can browse through…

Other News…

* We just got back from the Keswick Convention, which was an excellent time of physical and spiritual refreshment.
* The kids are at ‘Fusion’ this week, which is our church’s holiday club. Lots of fun (including a TARDIS in the shape of a garden shed!!)
* SUMMER PARTY this Saturday. Drop me a line if you’d like to come and haven’t told us yet.
* Off to Derbyshire next week.

That’s about it for now. Thanks for reading.

Answer to last week’s question: the most abundant metal in the Earth’s crust is aluminium (NB pronounced AL-YOO-MIN-EE-UM where I come from!)

Answer to last week’s question: Junko Tabei climbed Mount Everest in 1975, being the first woman ever to do so.

Here we are arriving at Heathrow Airport a week ago:

Although we are home, it doesn’t quite feel like it yet. We do feel like strangers in this country, even though it’s our own. The biggest shock has been the temperature -around 15 degrees Celcius lower than what we have been used to. In fact, on the first night, Ruth came into our bedroom wearing gloves and a woolly hat and has had a hot water bottle most nights since!!!

The journey home went very smoothly, although at pre check-in the morning of our departure we found our cases were all a couple of kilos overweight so we had to take stuff out or face hefty fines! Thankfully, we’re shipping some stuff back, so what we removed was simply added to the shipping consignment.

On the way out of the airport, we got to wait in the salle d’honneur, the president’s lounge for dignitaries! (top left picture below). This was due to our friend Mathieu Assogba, whose pop video Rob appeared in (see it here). (NB we didn’t ask for this privilege but didn’t feel like turning it down either!) Very nice, though, and air-conditioned. However, once we’d left there, we had to join the queue with everyone else!

The other pictures on this collage are (TR) our plane (well, a similar one anyway - to take a photo of ours we’d have had to miss it!!) Then (BL) Ruth on the plane with her cousin Rachel, who came to visit for our last 2 weeks and was a tremendous help with packing and keeping the kids entertained. Finally (BR) Lois, Mads and Micah on the plane. All three kids had their hair plaited African style before we left, but have taken it out now. Here they are back in our new home in Bedfordshire:

Thanks for reading! Summer party 2nd August if you’re around…

Answer to last week’s question: The king of hearts is the only king in a pack of cards without a moustache. And the winner was Reggie Thompson.

Yes, it’s hard to believe that much time has passed so quickly, or that we’re already leaving this country which we’ve come to know and love. We return to the UK for a few months then back to West Africa, but not to Benin. Guess we’ll have to change the name of the blog now (any suggestions?)

We face going back to the UK with trepidation; having spent so long here, Britain feels like a foreign culture to us now. Furthermore, Britain has moved on and changed in the past 4 years like we have, so re-adapting will be an ‘interesting’ process. Furthermore, we are very sad to leave behind all the adventures and fun of Africa, not to mention the many friends we have made here.

This is a collage of just some (but by no means all) of the amazing, talented, interesting and just plain nice people we have got to know whilst living in Benin. We have worked with them, prayed with them, laughed with them, eaten with them, jammed with them, travelled with them, partied with them and become attached to them. Some left months ago, others very recently. Still others we leave behind in Benin. But we thank God for all of them and hope to stay in touch and meet again some day.

Goodbye Benin friends

Goodbye zemidjans

Goodbye Fon speaking

Goodbye home of amazing polyrhythms

Goodbye Land Rover driving on dirt roads

Goodbye dramatic thunderstorms

Goodbye Fulani cheese and lush, juicy mangos

Goodbye bustling, colourful markets

Goodbye sunshine

Goodbye Cotonou

Goodbye Benin