We used to have groups of children coming out to stay in our house during holiday time. There was not much opportunity for the children to do anything in Addis Ababa. So we organised for groups of about 12 children to come out and stay on our farm at Mulu. I think we called them Discovery and Adventure Holidays.
When they came out, they would camp in the field below our house with one of us with them and during the day we would take them for walks but also for rides on horses. We probably took them swimming in the pool we swam in on the Bomfata river. These holidays were always very popular, and we always limited the numbers to around 12-15. It needed careful planning to keep the children busy so that they did not feel homesick.
I don’t think that was a problem because the children enjoyed themselves so much that there was no time for them to feel homesick. I seem to remember that sometimes we would be asked by parents who were working in Addis Ababa to have their children out in the school holidays so that they could have a bit of fun. Other parents heard of these holidays that we were offering and would ask if their kids could come. We ended up having children of many nationalities coming but we would only take children who could speak English to come as otherwise they would not be able to speak to each other. It was incredibly hard work to have them all there but they so enjoyed it so it was great that they had somewhere to go to and it gave us some extra cash that had nothing to do with the farm. We used it to pay for our children to come out for their holidays from England to Mulu in Ethiopia.