Audiences, Anansi, and Alphabets

Hello everyone!

We thought we'd take a quick moment to share some of the latest photos from our daily family life. Times are hectic in the winter with heavy workloads and shortened daylight hours, but the kids still find many ways to enjoy each day.

Below is a surprise we discovered upon coming upstairs after cleaning the dinner dishes. The kids had set up an audience in their room for a performance they were holding!

Sonali also had a performance at school to retell some of the classical African Anansi folk tales. These are fables, and the one Sonali participated in was Anansi and the Moss Covered Rock, a silly story where Anansi tries to trick the other African animals but gets outsmarted in the end. Sonali was an elephant.

The costumes were all very imaginative. Check out the rabbits, giraffes, and lions below!

This weekend, Nalini also had her Hathe Khori at a local Saraswati (Goddess of learning, music, and the arts) Puja. This is traditionally done at the start of schooling for a child, and Sonali's was last year, during her first year of kindergarten. By that point, though, she had already been writing her name for 2 years, and since Nalini had the chance to do this special ritual with her friend this year, we decided to go for it "early." Here she is doing her alphabet in Bengali with the priest.

And here she is showing off her handiwork! She did the English writing of her name completely independently, and I helped her with the Bengali writing.

Well done, girls!!