Pizza Party with the Felikis

Last Wednesday Drew coordinated a pizza party at our place with the entire Feliki clan (=7 kids, 2 adults), the Botts (=Nick & Jenna) & Jessica, who's been helping to tutor Zena & Sikola. If you don't know who the Felikis are, they are a refugee family from Burundi. As Hutus, the parents fled Burundi in 1978--part of the first exodus fleeing the genocide. You can read more about this history on Wikipedia (what doesn't wikipedia know?!). They spent the rest of their lives in refugee camps in Tanzania. Their entire families minus a sibling or two were killed in the massacre, so it was important for Kabura & Janeatti (Janet) to have a large family themselves, wanting their children to have what violence stole from them. Kabura, the Feliki father, was at work this night (he just got a job! yay!) but Janet brought a family friend, Japhet, to accompany her instead.

Here's the group, minus Drew (Mr. Photographer):


Eating PIZZA!!!!!!!!!! They only liked the orange soda, so we were stuck with 2 liters of coke & 7-up... I also made fried yucca, a tradiational Dominican recipe, in hopes that the yucca would serve as a "taste of home" (they eat it in Burundi):


Japhet, Janet & kiddos enjoying "Spiderman" on the couch:


The kids LOVE Tink--every time we see them, they say "we need to go to your house to see Tink!" Even Wilfred got some cuddle action:


What a blessing this family is to us! Thank you, Felikis, for allowing us into your family.