Safari, the Last, Part I

So, we decided the first week of April that I would take the girls and head back to the U.S. to set up house and start work departing Zambia the third week in April.  In between deciding and going I had approximately eight million things to do, Chris was out of town for a week, and I decided it was vitally important to take the girls to Lower Zambezi for one last safari.  While the packing and planning did add some additional stress, the trip itself was wonderfully relaxing, really fun, completely amazing and totally worth it.

We left Lusaka at 6am and zipped right out of town without any traffic issues, which was great.  Unfortunately, there was quite a lot of random road "construction" and I use that term loosely as while I saw cones and people randomly and unhelpfully waiving flags I could not really ascertain what improvements may, or may not have been taking place.  There were also a ton of trucks including some very large mining machinery making its way up to the Copperbelt, as shown below.

Thusly, our drive was a bit slower than would have been ideal, but we eventually made it to the camp where we were to meet the boat and got all the stuff and people loaded up and set off down the river.  T LOVED the fast boat ride.

And then, peace, quiet, and glorious, glorious nature!

The afternoon of Day 1 was filled with elephants, including some very cute baby elephants.

Day 2 started with hot chocolate for the girls (possibly one of their very favorite things about the trip) and coffee for me before setting out on a game drive.

When going to bed the previous night we had heard lions in the distance so we were optimistic that we might find them in the morning and we weren't disappointed.  As some of you may recall, both girls have seen several lions, but only BOY lions and K very much wanted to see GIRL lions.  Well, we got lucky and saw not only two male lions but also, finally, a female!  K was very happy.

If you look closely there are lions to the left of the cute smiling faces in both photos, I swear!

T enjoyed her morning so much she had to pass out for a mid-morning nap.

But she rallied after her little snooze!

And both girls love the pool, of course.  Isn't T cute in her little "burkini", as I like to call it, poor pale little thing.

In the late afternoon we headed out on the boat, which T loves, and saw more wildlife.  Like this nice big, friendly  corcodile!

And this elephant crossing the river!

 Then we had a picnic dinner for the kids on a lovely little island and they got to run around and dig in the sand and generally frolic.  I am pretty sure both girls still had sand in their hair when we got back to the U.S. despite repeated washings.

 Finally, we wrapped up by roasting some marshmallows.

To be continued... really, I promise!

Who DOESN’T Have A Live Electrical Wire in Their Backyard?

 Our house has had assorted electrical issues ever since we moved in.  We burned out three or four different distillers.  Light bulbs frequently burn out after two or three weeks.  We once had to have our house “jump started” by a beat up old truck when the power was out and our generator did not start.  Then there was the time we spend two full weeks on generator power because every night between 6 and 8 pm the power was going on and off every 5 or 10 minutes, and yes, the generator would kick in but after this fried our TV I decided I would rather not have any more electronics or appliances sacrificed to the fickle whims of the electricity gods.  So I made them run the generator until the managed to have something fixed in the incoming wires and now when our power goes out in the evenings (as it does many evenings) it only goes out once, which is a significant improvement!  Power out to our staff quarters is fickle and we had some huge project at some point early in our tenure involving our borehole pump (well and water pump).  Recently C happened to come home in the middle of the day to find some folks on the preventative maintenance team doing work in the house including a guy with a nifty infrared scanner checking out the electrical box in the house where all the circuit breakers reside.  He apparently said something along the lines of, “huh, you have wires smoldering behind the box.”  Didn’t actually suggest that anyone would DO anything about the smoldering wires, just that they were, you know, there.  At this point I suddenly became very grateful for living in a house constructed primarily of cinder blocks and concrete with very, very little wood.  I also checked to make sure our “escape hatches” (the mechanical mechanism that opens the bars on the windows in case of a fire or other emergency) were all working and I was quite pleasantly surprised to discover they did indeed all function.

Lots of issues.  An unusual number of issues even for here.  And all along C and I kept mentioning to the appropriate people that we thought our house had holistic electrical issues and that perhaps the wiring should be looked at and upgraded.  Indeed, I think we even suggested that perhaps while we were in the U.S. on holiday last year would be a great time to work on the electrical issues in the house.  Same conversation over and over and nothing happens.  The issue at hand always gets fixed, eventually, but nothing was ever done about the underlying problems.  And at this point C and I have a serious case of senioritis or short-timer syndrome and can’t really be bothered to care.

That is, couldn’t be bothered to care until about two weeks ago when we had some friends over and were sitting out in the back yard, the adults enjoying some snacks and beverages while the children frolicked happily and harmoniously.  Then we saw and heard a spark.  It looked and sounded a bit like a firecracker and was essentially right in the middle of the yard by the sidewalk at the base of one of our mango trees.  I realized I had seen the same thing earlier but when it had not repeated itself had decided I was either imagining things or it was some strange reflection of light.  The adults immediately went and had a look and waited and then it did it again, at which point we realized it was a live electrical wire arching into the yard.  Awesome!  We call the appropriate workmen because our initial assumption was that it must be a wire that somehow was cut or chewed through and not only is it unsafe because it is sparking live electricity into the yard, but we may be about to lose other power because a wire is cut.  The workman arrived quite promptly, turned all the power off and started exploring the wire situation, including digging essentially a trench around the wire.  And here is where things get really interesting… it was NOT a cut wire.  We were never able to find the other half of it.  No no, buried about an inch and a half into my yard, where my kids regularly play, was just a random live wire.  Presumably, at some point it had been connected to something, perhaps a light, and when that something was removed the brilliant folks involved decided to just leave the wire in the ground, uncapped and completely electrified, and it had worked its way to the surface. 

As you can perhaps imagine, I was quite annoyed.  Irritated even.  I sent very strongly worded email to several people indicating that I wanted the wire fixed, detailing all the other historical electrical issues and saying I also wanted a written report about the “smoldering” wires and recommending a complete electrical overhaul of the house after our departure in June.

And then I sort of got exactly what I wanted.  The wire was fixed and they decided to do a complete electrical evaluation of the house.  Then the evaluation suggested that we might be living in a death trap so we spent a very long weekend pending the full outcome of the report worried that we were going to have to move to a different house for our last four months in country.  And I couldn’t complain since they had, indeed, done exactly what I wanted.  The good news is, in the end, the house is apparently not an immediate death trap and we don’t have to move, though they are going to completely redo the electrical before anyone else moves in, so you are welcome unknown stranger who has our house next!

In other news, T would like you to see her new bunny shoes.

And I can’t remember the last time K wore actual pants, like a pair of jeans.  Leggings, skirts and dresses are all she will willingly put on (often all three at once).

Also, gratuitous photo of baked goods from a super fun drinks and dessert girls’ night I hosted.  The great irony being that I have no desire to eat anything sweet right now and am craving only salty or tart things, but I still find cooking and baking really relaxing so other folks get to be the beneficiaries of my baking extravagances.  Also, I think it is important to spread a little Southern love and introduce as many people as possible to the joys of strawberry pretzel salad.

And why not a photo of C and I from the awesome St. Patrick’s ball we attended.  Having my sober pregnancy goggles on means I have some outstanding blackmail shots of everyone else once they were a few Guinesses into the evening.  You know who you are so be nice to me.

A Chicken and a Mermaid Walk Into a Bar

First, a programing note: I still owe yall several posts about the holidays and our assorted travels but I very much want to include photos and the internet very much does not want me to do so.  Thus, I am going to seize the moment and write about something new while it is fresh in my mind and I will return to holiday adventures when I am feeling more patient and the internet gods are feeling more benevolent.

The last Saturday of every month there is a big market at the Dutch Reform Church just down the street from our house.  There is a wide assortment of Afri-crap: everything from batiks to bowls to masks to spears to carved animals and a whole lot of stuff in between.  There is also yummy food including great asian noodles, grilled meats, and baked goods.  Plus some fresh veggies and fruits thrown in for good measure.  It is pretty much a sensory overload experience, a bit like a U.S. farmers market on crack.  Of course, the girls love it and C hates it.

This morning I set off with K and T to enjoy the many splendors of the market experience.  We weren't actually shopping for anything in particular, which always makes it a bit easier than when you go knowing you need a gift for so-and-so or you really want that wooden bowl you saw last time and liked so much which inevitably means you will never ever see one like it again.  I promised the girls they could get a snack and if they were good they could each pick out one small thing.

We arrive relatively early, around 8:30 or so, which doesn't seem particularly early to me in the scheme of my Saturday morning as certain small people like to wake up and wake me up between 5:30 and 6:00.  Suffice to say, I had already been awake for a while.  But the market is just getting started so it is not to crowded yet and vendors are still setting up their stalls.  I wanted to do a quick walk through just to see who was there today and whether there was anything new, interesting, or notable.  We are wandering about and the girls are cooperating beautifully when I spot it and know we are in trouble.  "It" is a life-size and remarkably life-like white chicken made of plastic bags.  Seconds later K sees it as well and is entranced, as I feared she would be.  "Mom, can I have it?  Plleeeaaaseee?  It will be my pet!  Pllleeeeeaaaaasssseee?"  I do the only thing I can do in the situation: I stall and bribe!  I suggest we should go have our snack first and then we can go look around some more before we pick out anything since there might be something even better than a creepy chicken.

Surprisingly, K acquiesces without much of a fight.  We go and have a snack and pick up a few yummy things like tortillas and some bagels before doing another sweep through the market.  K has not mentioned the chicken again so I am optimistic I have successfully distracted her and we might escape without it.  We are looking around and stop at one of the stalls that has lots of different things made out of beads and wire.  They are colorful and fun and, as I learned at Christmas when I bought a whole herd of reindeer, surprisingly durable.  There were animals of all assortments and then I spotted two mermaids which I pointed out to the girls.  T was immediately smitten and clearly she was sold.  Great! K seemed to be similarly enamored until she looks at me and says, "I can have the chicken and the mermaid, right?"  Ummmm, nope, gotta pick just one, and wouldn't you rather have the beautiful mermaid?  Especially since T is getting a mermaid, then they mermaids can play together!  K is looking down the row of stalls.  She clearly knows exactly where that damn chicken is.  Her little brain is struggling with having to make a choice.  She really doesn't want to put down the sparkly mermaid in her hand... but she wants the stupid chicken even more.  No sale on the mermaid!

Fine.  She made a choice.  We walk back up the row to the stall with the chicken.  Whatever bargaining power I usually have is completely undercut by the fact that K is rocking the chicken and cooing to it.  The women running the stall are no dummies.  They know the crazy white woman isn't going to break her darling little girl's heart by refusing to buy the chicken at this point.  They are absolutely not going to haggle.  Fine again.  I buy the chicken for full price (which is still absurdly cheap but I usually try to bargain just on principle).

We are done and are wandering out of the market, K cradling her chicken, T babbling away to her mermaid.  I assure you we got several funny looks and more than a few chuckles.

So both girls are happy.  I am happy since we all had a relatively pleasant and enjoyable outing (and because I picked up fresh okra on the way out!  Burgers, sweet potato wedges and fried okra for dinner, yummy!).  Everyone is happy.  Except, on closer inspection, whatever real live chicken sacrificed it's claws and beak to make K's new "pet" because I am pretty sure those are the real deal.  Ewwwwwwww!

Buttermilk Girl and Super Monkey!

I just sat down intending to do a few posts from the holidays when I realized that I had already uploaded Halloween photos and written half a post and then, apparently, totally forgotten about it.  Thus, in the interest of proper chronology, I present Halloween 2012 (only 2 and a half months late!)

So, K likes to dress up.  A lot.  Most of the time she is a princess of some assortment or another.  But every now and then she dons this ensemble and is (drumroll please...) Buttermilk Girl!  Yes, you read that right, not Butterfly Girl.  Butter MILK Girl.  All we can think is she really like my buttermilk pie and that is where the name comes from.  We don't really know.  The minds of 4-year olds are mysterious.

But this is one of my favorite K personas, especially as it seems to have a very elaborate back story, for instance she is a rescue girl, who rescues people, and her powers are in her cheeks.

I was very excited when K went on to announce that she wanted to be a superhero for Halloween as I was anticipating her insisting on being a princess of some sort.  As soon as she said superhero I used me internet superpowers and ordered her a super cute costume.  Ta Da!  Super K!

Poor second child T of course got the choice of K's old costumes so it was monkey or elephant for her. She went with monkey and was very excited and wore the costume all around the house the day before the Halloween event.  Day of was, of course, a slightly different story and once she saw K's superhero costume she wanted nothing to do with the monkey.  Many tears, much foot stomping, and some naked fleeing later, we reached a compromise and she was supermonkey!  Amazing the difference a shiny pink cape can make.

Both girls enjoyed the festivities though I was quite disappointed in their lack of focus on the trick or treating aspect.  They kept getting distracted by silly things like games and playing while there was perfectly good candy out there just waiting to be collected and brought to ME!  We are going to have to work on that for next year for sure!

Happy Hippo Birthday T!

Last weekend we celebrated T's second birthday in the backyard with lots of friends, lots of food, lots of mimosas and bloody mary's and one lumpy, collapsed blue cake!  My birthday party (and I guess party in general) specialty here is brunch since I can make almost everything in advance and just heat things up in the morning and because it is much easier to serve just bloody mary's and mimosas along with some coffee and juice than to operate a full bar.  Also, my children become evil, grumpy, nasty little monsters after about 5pm so evening gatherings aren't really their strong suit.

I was a bit concerned about planning poor little T's party after the unicorn and dragon extravaganza that was K's last birthday party.  I was struggling to come up with a theme when T herself provided one during our last trip to Lower Zambezi.  The girl is obsessed with hippos!  She got so excited ever time we saw any that it seemed like the obvious choice for the birthday theme.  

So, we committed to hippos, brunch, and a date and proceeded full speed ahead.  I ordered lots of hippo plates, and a pinata, and cute little napkins and a nifty little hippo cake topper... or I thought I had ordered a nifty little hippo cake topper which I planned to put in a perfectly lovely round blue cake (a river, obviously).  Except two nights before the party I finally got around to opening the giant box of hippo paraphernalia and no cake topper.  Not because the company forgot to include it.  Oh no!  because I forgot to order it!  I looked at it, I decided I wanted it, but I left off that crucial step of actually clicking on it and putting it into my cart and purchasing it.  Whoops!  Not a problem thought as we have lots of little colorful stone hippos from the local junk market.  Not exactly the look I was going for but it would be fine.  Just fine!  Blue cake (red velvet cake with blue food coloring instead of red).  Not just any cake, mind you, but the same recipe I have been using successfully since 2002.  I have probably made this same cake twenty or thirty times.  Indeed, it is the cake I dyed green earlier this year and cut into the shape of a dragon!  And all I wanted to do this time was color it blue and have a basic two tiered round cake.  Simple!  But then, this happened:

It's a caketastropy!!!

The first layer seemed a bit unstable but I was able to get icing on it.  The second layer was causing a bit of concern and then, at the first spoonful of icing, utter and complete collapse.  I kept adding more icing in hopes I could sort of glue it all back together but it rapidly became apparent that it was just making things worse.  So, I did what any responsible parent would do 15 hours out from a party with a debacle of a cake on her hands.  I stuck it in the fridge, poured myself a glass of wine, and decided to deal with it in the morning!

Once it chilled a bit in the fridge I was able to add a bit more icing and while it was still a lumpy mess we decided it looked rather lie a river in which hippos might live so good enough!  And, not surprisingly, no two-year olds minded one bit that the cake was wonky.  They were all too excited about their blue tongues to care at all.

Victory (or close enough)!

The party was great with a bunch of awesome people.  We had a pinata with pull strings, rather than the traditional whack it with a stick model because I was still a bit emotionally scarred by the stick wielding children from K's party.  This was much safer!  Perhaps slightly less exciting, but so much less stressful.  The kids drew all over the playhouse with chalk, overfed the bunnies (apparently they like banana bread, who knew!), generally ran amuck in the yard, and overall had a ton of fun.  Perhaps I am recalling the morning with mimosa goggles, but I don't really remember a singly screaming fit or fight.  A birthday miracle!

Sting pinata- all the candy without the horrible fear of someone getting hit with a stick!

T got a baby stroller of her own, which she loves, and an awesome piggy pillow.  So cute!

Happy sisters!  Super cute dresses courtesy of grandparents, of course!

Whoops...

Did anyone else totally and completely misplace the months of August and September?  I know October just snuck up on me leaving me feeling a bit confused and discombobulated.  Not that anything drastic or terribly dramatic happened over the past two months.  Just getting into the new normal of our daily routine with K back in school (which she loves) and me starting a new job (which I love) has thrown things off kilter enough to make life feel hectic and rushed.  But, the good news is, I think we are really finally hitting our stride and that October should be awesome!

While the majority of you are starting to enjoy varying degrees of crisp fall weather , things are starting to really heat up here.  We even had one almost 100 degree day, which was a bit brutal.  We are still a few weeks away from rain, as evidenced by the thin layer of red dust that covers everything outside.  I can't wait for the first big rain to come and clean everything up.  It really is quite odd thinking that we haven't had rain since sometime way back in May.  Of course, the rain is going to create some logistical problems with the pet bunnies (which are holding at a total of seven, though I am currently suspicious that there are babies in the burrow again).  We are going to have to create some sort of rain shelter to keep the poor things from being perpetually soaked.

Two of my cousins were in country for a couple of weeks.  It sounded like they had an amazing trip and we were lucky enough to get to spend one small leg of it with them at one of our favorite lodges on the Lower Zambezi.  The elephants were out in force.  On one river cruise we must have seen close to forty of them!  We even got to see a group crossing the river.  Plus lots of crocs and, of course, the omnipresent hippos.  And the adults all had to jump out and push the boat at one point when we got stuck on a sandbank (the Kafue dam had unexpectedly shut a couple of its gates and teh water level dropped a good meter or more overnight).  The girls both had a great time and T especially enjoyed all the hippos.  I am starting to hope just a little that maybe she will actually remember some of this adventure after all, especially if we keep showing her photos and talking to her about all the amazing things she has seen in Africa.  After all, she does turn two tomorrow!

The closes thing we have to a family photo in which all of us look nice.  Poor K, just cannot smile for a photograph, she always ends up looking pained or angry, when in fact she really has a lovely, lovely smile.

One of the big groups of elephants we saw.  Almost certainly all bachelor males hanging out together.  This bunch was very playful and relaxed as they came down for an afternoon drink.  Coincidentally, I was also having an afternoon drink on the water!  Gin and tonic, of course, as it is important to take all necessary precautions against malaria.

We came around a bend in the river just in time to see a group of four elephants crossing at a shallow spot.  We just drifted closer and closer and they totally ignored us and went on their merry way.  It was really neat and the girls were fascinated.

One of the many medium sized crocs we saw on this trip.  We have seen bigger in the past, but these guys were less shy and would let the boat float right up to them without scurrying off.

Finally!  The classic hippo shot!

Its a rough life, but someone has to do it.

I liked how this guy was staring us down from the grass trying to decide what he thought about us.  I also like his little passenger.

And that is all for now!  More soon, I hope!

In reverse chronological order...

Where is K?  Oh, up there!

I should mention that sitting down to create this post caused me a great deal of panic when I suddenly thought I had lost all of the photos I took on our last two safaris since they should have been in my "most recent" file but instead were nowhere to be found.  I was freaking out, especially since these were all photos I took with my nice, new camera rendering them extra sharp and lovely.  Then I realized the problem was not the camera, or the computer, but someone, ahem, doesn't know the difference between June and July and set the month incorrectly on the new camera, causing the photos to hide back in last month's stash.  Mystery solved, problem fixed, whew!

So, we have had a busy July.  In reverse order, C and I spent last Monday and Tuesday night at a great bush camp on an island in the middle of the Zambezi River. The girls stayed home with our nanny and housekeeper and this arrangement seemed to work swimmingly for everyone involved.  C and I got to enjoy river cruises, a walking safari, fishing (C caught a big tiger fish!), several naps and an ample amount of quiet reading time while the girls got two days of lots of candy and I don't even want to know how much TV.  Win-win!

One of the many, many crocs we saw on the river

We also had very good luck with lots of elephant sightings.  Plus, both nights and elephant came and scratched himself on a tree right outside our chalet right after bedtime.  Sounded remarkably like a rubber raft being dragged across grass

And we saw many hippos, including several outside the water which just amuses me to no end.  Several also enjoyed late night snacks in close proximity to us.  They are not quiet eaters!

Earlier this month we did a getaway for the whole family to South Luangwa.  BEautiful, amazing, utterly realizing.  Had I not had an event that Monday morning I was fully ready to pull out the credit card to stay for another night.  We did several game drives, including a couple of night drives, and saw giraffes, elephants, hippos, all of the impala and their ilk, a hyena, a porcupine, warthogs, some cape buffalo, a very brief spotting of a leopard, and recurring encounters with three male lions.  Unfortunately, K had demanded to see "girl lions" so the fact that we kept running into these three very lazy juvenile males became a bit of a running joke with us and the lodge staff as it seemed to just frustrate her more each time.  We even tried lying to her and saying they were girl lions, but she knows better, pointing out that "they have HAIR so they are BOYS!"  T kept saying "hi" and "bye" to all of the animals, which was very cute.

Anyway, school starts in two weeks and I start a new, part-time job a few weeks after that so our summer routine is definitely about to get shaken up.  But mostly I am scheming about getting back out into the bush since we have learned that the girls are old enough to handle a trip relatively well or that we can leave them behind and that also works.  Both of these discoveries open up all kinds of fun options!

At one point on a drive I said to K, "look over there!" Her response, with heavy, worldly sigh, "mom, its just an elephant."  Yup, just an elephant...

They are getting good at this whole game drive thing.

Funny little warthogs

Giraffes!

The male lions we just kept running into over and over again