Moving again and a walk in the moonlight!

Hello once again! Well I’ve got quite a lot of news for you this time….we have finally moved into a lovely bungalow which is surrounded by a beautiful garden. I am really happy to be here. It is wonderful to be able to sit outside so much and I love watching the birds, butterflies and lizards that frequent the garden. There are several pairs of sunbirds (which are very brightly coloured and are similar to hummingbirds) that feed on the nectar from the flowers in the garden. There is one tree in particular with small green fruits and large yellow bell-like flowers that they love. This grows just across from our patio, so it is wonderful to sit and watch these tiny birds with sparkling feathers as they dart from flower to flower.



We are gradually getting sorted in our house, we went out yesterday to buy a lot of plates, glasses and cutlery, and have to buy a lot more furniture as this is a much bigger place than our last one. We have made it quite homely already (we only moved two weeks ago) and have some pictures up on the walls, and have curtains up in the bedrooms. It takes much longer to get some things here. For example, it’s not just a case of going into a furniture shop and buying things. Very often you have to get people round to your house and explain what you want and they go away and make it. We actually had a very good Nigerian artist at the house this morning. We wanted her to paint 3 pictures for us, so we explained what we wanted and showed her what size they should be, and she is going away to paint them. They will be ready in two weeks…which isn’t bad really!


We went on a long walk on Friday evening. It was called the Full Moon Hash which involved a big group of people following paper trails that had been set earlier in the day. Some people followed the runners trail, and some the walkers. Guess which one I followed??! It was a beautiful full moon, and we found that we hardly needed torches to light our way. The walk went all over a wild part of Abuja that was not built up, so it was quite exciting! At the end was a huge barbecue with plastic tables and chairs to sit on, overlooking the lights of the city…it was very beautiful! I did feel very tired on Saturday, however, and treated myself to a wonderful pedicure (a foot massage) at one of the local hotels. It had been a long and dusty walk, and I felt that I had earned that treat!

Speaking of dust, the Harmattan (the wind that brings dust down from the Sahara desert…do you remember?) is starting, and some days it hides the sun. It is not too bad at the moment, but I am not looking forward to when it covers everything in red dust! The good thing is that it helps to keep the temperature down (which is about 30degrees C at the moment)

At school, I hope to get our emails through to you next week. Mrs Cox and Mrs Jones will be writing with you, and I will get our two oldest classes to write to you. I hope that this will be successful, as it would be lovely to be able to write from one school to another, and exchange our news.

That’s about all for now; I hope that you like the photos of our new house. Next time I will include some of the birds and also some of my school.
Lots of love to you all,
Mrs Sanchez xxxx