Happy 2015!!

Happy New Year to you all!

Our group started the year with an awesome meeting themed "Bush Camping in New Zealand" - to celebrate the holidays, the Summer and the country that we all love and chose to live in - our beloved Aotearoa. 

And what better than show New Zealand through its beautiful nature and a day camping in the bush? The weather was also on our side and we all had fun in a sunny hot summer's day! The day started with a picnic for lunch and followed with a walk through the bush where Aki guided the children through different types of Ferns and other native trees. My son Ben still remembers and found very useful the information about the "bushman's friend" scientifically known as: Brachyglottis repanda (rangiora or bushman's friend)  - "a small, bushy tree or tall shrub endemic to New Zealand. It grows to a height of 5 to 7 metres. The large leaves with a soft furry underside have been referred to as "bushman's toilet paper". Other common names in Māori include kōuaha, pukapuka, pukariao, puke-rangiora, raurākau, raurēkau, whārangi, or whārangi-tawhito. Māori used the plant for a number of medicinal uses. The leaves were used for wounds and old ulcerated sores, and the gum was chewed for foul breath but was poisonous if swallowed.^[1] It can also be used as note paper."

Among all nature around us the kids found themselves immersed in the bush climbing trees, sucking leaves, searching for bugs and even playing Tarzan with the trees branches (And some adults too!!). Check out the photos below.

Thank you Aki and Ivor for having us at the camping site.

Cheers,

Renata

Great fun at the stream!

 Families relaxing at picnic

Our walk through the bush

         

        Ben and his silver fern shirt. 
      And we found a real one in our walk too!  

 Yiupieeeeeeeeeee!!!               

A cricket game!!

Can you spot the Eel?

Fun in the pond!

Great day for relaxing too....

December Meeting – Argentina

I can’t believe we are in the end of the year and next week will be Christmas!!! These last months certainly flew by! We had a great last meeting of the year this Saturday with our guest speaker from Argentina – Laura. Thank you so much for coming and sharing a bit of your country with us. Laura talked about the language, culture and traditions in Argentina. I really enjoyed the pictures of the Gauchos  - what you may have know as the “cowboys of South America”. We also have gauchos in Brazil, so it was great to see some similarities in their costumes and the way that they deal with the cattle and horses. They also have this very traditional drink – mate, that I knew very well from Brazil. The presentation ended with a beautiful video of a couple dancing Tango! Absolutely amazing! How do they move their feet so fast? Beautiful traditional dance of the capital city - Buenos Aires.

Laura made these delicious empanadas for our lunch that was a great success among the group. Children and adults all enjoyed the baked pastry filled with mince beef. Yum!

After our lunch we headed to the Carter Observatory for our end of the year celebration where the families could have some fun together and the children could discuss the “Big Bang Theory”.  It was great to see the children interested in finding out how everything started… the birth of the Universe!  Carter has a great exhibition about the subject with videos and interactive experiences for the visitors. We all had a great time!

Before saying goodbye I would like to wish you all a Merry Christmas. May this new year bring you and your family much joy and laughter. To be happy is the greatest wish in life.

Feliz Navidad!!!

Renata

Find below pictures of the day

Laura talking about Argentina

                               

Laura, Gregory and their son Francisco. Too cute!

Empanadas

Children enjoying the Argentinean Empanadas

                            

Big Bang Exhibition at Carter Observatory - Wellington

                                    

The children had fun also at the other galleries

 

November Meeting - Turkey

Thank you to all of you who came to the meeting this month and a special thank you to Marian who accepted the invite to talk about this amazing country with such an interesting history. Did you know that the Republic of Turkey was not created until 1923? And with its modernization, a language reform was also established by the Turkish Language Association in 1932 to replace words of Arabic and Persian origin with Turkish equivalents! I certainly learnt a lot and I hope you and your children did too.

It was a lovely day filled with great information, games and of course our communal lunch in the end where all the families had a relaxing time to talk and get to know each other. On the menu was Lahmucan - "a round, thin piece of dough topped with minced meat (most commonly beef and lamb) and minced vegetables and herbs including onions, tomatoes and parsley, then baked. Lahmacun is often served sprinkled with lemon juice and wrapped around vegetables including pickles, tomatoes, peppers, onions, lettuce and roasted eggplant. It is commonly referred to as "Turkish Pizza".  Yuuuummm!!  
Find the recipe in the end of this post.

 Have a look at the pictures of the day below:

Marian introducing Turkey to the group

Children watching the presentation sitting on beautiful Turkish rugs and cushions

Snacks were served during the presentation - dried apricots - a very traditional fruit in Turkey

Some words of the Turkish Language

Serious work at the kitchen! Thanks, Richard!

Wow - that's a lot of Lahmacun - what we know as "Turkish Pizza" Yum!

Rob preparing some of the lemon and lettuce to go with Lahmacun

Our search for countries begin!!

The Continents' names are put down on the floor and replicate same position as on the World Map

Children play with repositioning countries within the continent they belong to.

We also added the Equator line to divide the Earth and talked about Northern and Southern Hemispheres.  

Hmmmm... Delicious Lahmacun!!! 

                                                                                       

Please find the recipe for Lahmucan kindly given by Marian. Thank you!

Turkish Lahmucan 

This recipe will serve a family of four or five for dinner.

For the crust – part 1

• 5 cups of all-purpose flour
• 1.5 cups of water
• 1/4 cup vegetable oil
• 3 tsp salt
• 1 tsp sugar
• 20 grams of yeast mixed with warm water to activate

Combine all the ingredients for the dough in a bowl or mixer. Kneed or mix the dough for about 5 minutes and let it rise for two hours. It doesn’t rise a great deal, so don’t worry if it doesn’t do what bread does when it rises. Lahmacun crust is not like pizza crust, we aren’t after bubbles when rising.   

For the Topping – part 2

• Half a kilo of minced beef (we mince our own meat to get top quality, little fat meat)
• 1 red capsicum
• 1/2 a green capsicum
• 1 large tomato
• 1 large onion
• 3 tbsp tomato salca (pure tomato paste will work fine if you can't find salca)
• 2 tsp Pul Biber in Turkish but you may know it as Aleppo Pepper Flakes.  You can use paprika too, the flavour may alter slightly. 
• 1.5 tsp ground cumin
• 1 tsp ground black pepper
• 1 – 1.5 tsp salt
• A handful of parsley.  Flat leaf / Italian parsley is preferable.  We grow our own.
• 1/5 cup olive oil

Put the capsicum, tomato, parsley and onion in a food processor and mix until everything is well ground. The consistency of the mixture should be in between a paste and sauce. Taste to see if you have the right level of heat, the mince will take the kick out of some of the spices but it’s best to add a little bit at a time to reach your own desired heat.
Combine your vegetable mix with the salca / tomato puree and olive oil. Bit by bit combine the spices to ensure you are getting the right heat for your family.  Then mix into the minced beef.   
Putting it together – part 3
When your dough has risen, start with forming little balls out of it. Mine are a bit bigger than a golf ball. Cover the balls so they don't dry out as you are batching them up.
Flour your work surface, take your roller pin and roll out your balls. You want your dough to be very thin, about two millimetres. Then, take a spoon and put the mixture on the bases and spread with the spoon. 
Pre-heat your oven until 200Cs and bake the lahmacuns for about 5-10 minutes (watch your first batch to test the oven/time ratio).  Now if you rolled them out thin, they will crisp up a bit, if they came out thicker then you can expect the colour of the dough to be much lighter. 
Serving – part 4
Squeeze a bit of lemon juice, put some salad on your lahmacun, wrap and enjoy!
Afiyet olsun!

September Meeting

In September we talked about Germany. We had a guest speaker, my friend Mai, to talk about her experiences whilst living in Germany. Mai is actually French, her husband is German and they lived in Germany for a while. It is great to hear stories about a foreign country told by a family with different nationalities. Mai took us in a cultural journey while talking about traditional customs, books, language and we listened to beautiful classical music. We also played the continent game and kids had the opportunity to find the countries in the world map and discuss the geography of various countries.

Our highlight of the meetings is our communal lunch, where we can try and taste a bit of the food from that particular country. Mai and her husband showed us how to make Spatzle A hand-made noodle that are very popular and an important ingredient of several dishes, such as Linsen mit Spätzle or Käsespätzle.   We also had frankfurter sausages. A smoked sausage made from pure pork, which is eaten hot and usually accompanied by bread and mustard. Not to be confused with the American hot dog "Frankfurter"!!

Germans are very proud of their mustard! We had a food game where the children had to guess what mustard they were having.... English? American? French? German? And they did pretty well!!

Check out some of the moments below:

Mai introducing us to Germany

Kids start the search for the Continents

Making the Spaetzle

The food game. Do you know your mustard?

English mustard? Too hot mummy!!

Lovely lunch! Thank you everyone!! And a special thanks to Mai and her family.

We are back!!

It is just unbelievable that my last post was over a year ago! Where is the time going? Last year we went to England to see friends and family and when we came back so many things happened that we didn't get back to have our meetings.... then in December we went to Brazil to also see friends and family there. We had a great time in the hot hot Brazilian summer! My husband stayed with us until New Year's but then had to come back to New Zealand. The boys and I stayed for another two months to make the most of quality time with grandparents, cousins, uncles and aunties. It was priceless! Leaving in a foreign country is a great experience for the whole family but it seems we are never 100% complete. With friends and family scattered around the world we always feel something is missing... Travelling back and forwards made me realise how lucky we are to offer the opportunity for my boys to experience all these diversity, customs and beliefs from different parts of the world but still within our one family. I guess I worked so hard to have them committed to my and their father's culture that I unconsciously put a hold on the International Children's Group. 

But the good news is that I am ready to re-start our meetings and have already been talking with some parents about a new format for the meetings and new games to get the children involved, learning and having fun at the same time!

Watch this space for more news soon.

Wow! It has been a while since my last blog!! This is because the Spies family has been away on holidays to Singapore and the UK! We had the most amazing time meeting our family in sunny England! That's right, the Summer this year in England was awesome. Blue sky, hot days and busy, busy places. The children were on their long holidays in that part of the world and there were people everywhere! The parks, the beaches, museums, cafes and restaurants were packed with families and tourists. But it was just great to see lots of people out and about enjoying their Summer holidays. My boys had so much fun with both set of grandparents, as my parents also came from Brazil to meet us. It was really magical. And let's not forget our wee holiday in Singapore, let me just say - a great stopover to break a bit of the long journey to the other side of the globe. Singapore has lots to do for all ages. But the best part was heading to the rides at Universal Studios and other attractions in Sentosa Island. The Singapore Zoo is a must see! I also enjoyed the Singapore Flyer and the Gardens by the Bay - a futuristic garden complex. Truly amazing! But hey, we are now back and looking forward to all the changes I'm planning for the International Children's Group.

Here is an achievement that's for all of us to be proud of - The International Children's Group is a finalist in the Wellington Airport Regional Community Awards 2013 - Kapiti District. This is really awesome guys and I would like to thank all the families involved in this project and also all the help from our community to make it such a success. A special thank you to my husband who always supported my crazy ideas and put me foward for this award. Fingers crossed now to watch the winners!!

         

And last but not least a few photos from our last meeting in June where we talked about... Singapore!

It was great to end the meeting with a communal lunch serving Singapore noodles. Great to talk about all the Asian spices and typical food with the kids. They seem to enjoy it better when they are eating at the same time! (Who doesn't?) That's an idea for our future meetings as well - end with a lunch with traditional food from that particular country we talk about. Yum!!!!

                            


                            


                                               

                             

MAY MEETING


In May we talked about "Charities around the World".

We've contacted a few charities, local and worldwide, to see how we could help.
We received a lot of material from Red Cross, Unicef and World Vision showing what they do around the world. The children saw pictures of places in Africa, India and lots of other countries where volunteers help in schools, hospitals and changing the lives of people around small villages. This was a great start for our conversation and to make our group think how we could help.

We also had the chance to visit Thrifty Place, a second-hand shop located downstairs of our hall, and talk to the volunteers about what they do with the donations they receive and how they help the local community.

Our group also collected clothes, shoes, children's items and house items to donate to 3 charities: Foster Hope - a New Zealand charity which provides basics for children going into foster care. Dress for Success - a charity based in  Wellington that promotes the economic independence of women by providing professional work attire, a network of support, and career development tools to help them thrive in work and in life. Red Cross Refugee Services - a charity part of the Red Cross, helping refugees families arriving in New Zealand to build a new life.

It was really great to see the children getting involved in our Charity talk and I really hope they start thinking more about those in need and how lucky we are living in a peaceful country with schools for everyone, clean water and a healthy environment.

                Showing pictures and locating places on the World Map

                                                      Sorting out donations  

                      Dropping off donations to Jess Anderson from Foster Hope