Mimi's Summer Day Camp, Day Fourteen - South Africa Week

This week we're discovering all about South Africa!  KT painted their beautiful flag -- they have so many colors in their flag.

 Next we got started on a special craft project that is going to take a while -- batik.  KT and I pinned a design on to the front of a white t-shirt (of course, KT chose a shark.  Yes, they have plenty of sharks in the waters around South Africa.  Sigh....

 I just cut out a picture and pinned it down, then KT put a layer of Elmer's clear blue glue on the shirt around the picture.  Then we pulled up the paper, and filled in the other details, like eyes, gills, etc.

 Then after that dried (about 4 hours later) we wet the t-shirt and took it outside.  We covered the table on the pavilion with some plastic trash bags, and sprayed on the fabric dyes.  KT wanted to call this "blood in the water!" She just LOVES sharks.  It's amazing how much she knows about them.  Anyway, she chose the colors and where to spray, but Grumpy had to help some with the spray dyes since they were so hard to push down.

 Now I have to wash these to get the glue off, and then set the colors in the dryer.  They will be all done by Thursday.  I made one for Joss while KT was making hers.  I'll post a picture of both of them on Thursday!

KT's looking for South Africa on the big globe...

Our next craft was creating our own African masks! We looked at examples on the Internet.

Next we took our weekly trip to the library.  We found some great books about African animals and the rain forests.

Back home we tried our hand at a favorite South African street food for lunch, Bunny Chow.  Apparently it's a hollowed out bread filled with a beef/meat curry, but we substituted chicken stew.  KT WAS NOT interested in this -- usually I can talk her into at least trying something new, but not so much today.  Oh well, she did eat some of the bread.

After lunch we made our South African dessert called Koeksisters.  It's pronounced cooksisters.  I had to look that up.  Anyway, I had made the dough early in the morning because it had to chill.  Then I made the syrup so it could sit and thicken some.  I left the ginger out of the recipe because I didn't think KT would like it.  We rolled the dough out and I started cutting the strips to "braid" these little gems.  That didn't last too long -- I probably made about 10 of them with braids.

 Frying the Koeksisters

 Cinnamon/Lemony syrup (this smelled heavenly!)

 Grumpy and KT helping out

About here is where I decided all this braiding was just TOO MUCH! I started cutting them into triangles instead.  Who has time for all that work?!!

 I'm done with all this braiding!

Okay, these are delicious.  You take the hot fried Koeksisters out of the oil, and dump them in the syrup to soak it up for a few minutes before transferring to a bowl.  Yikes, I can't keep these here or I'll eat EVERY LAST ONE OF THEM.  We took the rest of them to the Koenigs. Joss loved them too!

Time for a swim!!  KT got a new suit with an African lion on it.  He's pretty cool -- with sunglasses!

What a fun day!  We're all tired out!

Thursday it's off to the African area of the zoo to see what animals they have there!  We're going early to try to beat some of this heat!