Cocoa

When you sink your teeth in that block of chocolate, have you ever wonder where the chocolate came from?

My grandfather used to grow cocoa trees which produce pods like these. Inside the pods are seeds and it is the seeds that yield cocoa powder, the essential ingredient to make chocolate.

These pods are not from my grandfather's trees. I snapped these in the Winter Garden green houses at the Auckland Domian. They gave me a pang of nostalgia from the old days in Borneo when I was a kid.

Rotorua Lakeland Queen

My trip to Rotorua was very worthwhile, and I took many photos of various landmarks. Berthed on the Rotorua lake, I saw her Majesty the Queen. This genuine 266 passenger stern wheel paddle ship was built on the traditional lines of the Mississippi River paddle ships.Purpose built and launched in 1986, the Lakeland Queen has only ever sailed on Lake Rotorua and is now a well-loved icon of Rotorua. She is powered by a 240 hp Cummins diesel engine driving the 8 bladed stern paddle through a hydraulic system.

The Lakeland Queen, New Zealand’s only Paddle Stern Driven Vessel returns to Lake Rotorua in all its glory complete with a 10-metre extension and a stylish new interior.

The Lakeland Queen can now cater for up to 240 guests for a seated breakfast, lunch or dinner, or 300 guests for a cocktail style function. The options available include one of the daily scheduled cruises, exclusive use of the upper or lower deck for a scheduled cruise, or to charter the entire vessel for the ultimate corporate, incentive or wedding experience.

The Love Bracelet

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Auckland held her International festival at the Mt Roskill memorial park.

If you love trying different food, listening to ethnic music and meeting people from other cultures, then the Auckland International Cultural Festival is just the event for you. This free festival is a celebration of Auckland's richness and diversity of cultures and a great opportunity for new refugees and migrants to have a sense of place and feel more connected, while displaying with pride the cultural variety they bring to our city. A feast for the senses, you can walk the world in a day, enjoying the people, music, dance, food, arts, crafts, displays and so much more from over 40 nations in just seven hours!

I promised my African refugee students that I will go. I even got a souvenir.

According to the young man who threaded it on my wrist, he explained The first bead, the Black bead represents all the bad things we do, The red : the love that jesus gave us when he died on the cross, The white: when we ask for forgiveness and we are forgiven, Green: that we grow and the Gold: symbolises the new heaven and the new earth.

I will wear the bracelet to school tomorrow and show them to my students. Doesn't it look good on my wrist?

Earth Day

Today is Earth Day.

To acknowledge the need to take action on Climate Change, people all over the world are encouraged to turn out the lights for one hour.

We are encouraged to switch off our lights for an hour from 8.30 to 9.30pm. My school is encouraging people to go to Coyle's park where there is a massive celebration with torch lights.

We went to our friend J's house for dinner and looked at the Sky Tower and someone wondered why it was so dim. Then we remembered it was earth day. J quickly turned off all the lights and took out extra candles. It wasn't too bad eating under the candle light. To make up for not starting on time, we continued to eat without switching the light back on. We would certainly remember this Earth Day.

New Zealad plant decor

This plant decor at the lobby of the Mt Albert Baptist Chruch has New Zealand plants and flowers. The forage is fruit salad leaves, and palm leaves, and the black one are flax flowers. I am not sure about the greens ones that look like a giant bottle washer.

They look really pretty and it goes to show that flower decors don't need red flowers. Even black flowers look good when the flower decorator knows what to blend in.

Anansi, the spider

In school, I have been using the British Council's interactive lessons in teaching how, Anansi the Spider got his long thin legs. This story comes from West Africa and the Caribbeans. With the adult students, I give them a lesson of the Slavery History. With the children,I give them strings of wool to be the spider web, and they pull Anansi and have lots of fun.

Some of my children are from Africa, and they are very happy to be learning this story. We use a potato to make stamps and make a before and after of Anansi. The we go to the school grounds and look for Anansi.

How did Anansi get his thin legs? Have you guessed? According to legend, Anansi didn't have thin legs, rather, he had short stubby legs. Anansi was greedy and cunning. He got his friends to pull his web when they were ready for him. Of course, by the time a few friends pulled the webs, his legs got thinner and thinner.

Balmoral Verses McDonalds

Balmoral, a little suburban in Auckland is challenging the giant McDonald's Restaurant. McDonalds want to build a mega 24/7 drive-thru in the neighbourhood. They managed to get a resource consent hearing date to be set in June. This has the support of the previous Prime Minister, Helen Clark.

This reminds me of when New Zealand stood up and said NO to nuclear power.