Typical

My weekly trip to the grocery store this morning included an experience that is just so typical of our time here in Africa.  Overall, it was quite a successful trip.  The store had parmesan cheese (which had been out of stock for months, and by out of stock I mean none anywhere in town, rumor is that the one importer in the whole country had his truck stopped at the border, possibly for failing to provide proper, ahem, compensation to the border guards and it was held up for so long that the whole shipment went bad and it took another month or so to get the next shipment) and nice looking eggplant, both of which were on my list.  They also had the greek yogurt I like and the little baby bell mini cheeses K likes in her school snack (stocking up for the last week of school next week, sniff sniff, tears).  In fact, I found everything on my list and I got in early enough that I beat the crowd and check out lines were short, all of which was very exciting.  Then, in the checkout line I noticed that the foil seal on top of the six-pack of small fruit yogurts I picked up for the girls was defective on one of the yogurts.  It wasn't sealed properly and was leaking a bit.  I brought this to the attention of the check out person and she sent the bagger off to pick up a new one, all of which made perfect sense and was surprisingly efficient.  Things went off the rails when the woman came back with another one which was also defective, explaining that "they are all like that."  And then they were both surprised and somewhat offended when I said no, I won't be buying the improperly sealed yogurt regardless of whether they are all like that or not!

The yogurt is a small, almost insignificant thing, but it is such a typical example of how things go wrong here.  The yogurt is sold under an international brand but is packaged and distributed locally.  I have seen their plant in town.  So, something obviously went wrong at the packaging level but instead of deciding that it was not appropriate to send out an improperly packaged product the plant went right ahead and shipped out a batch of leaky yogurt.  So, fail one for the plant.  Then, the store had no issues with accepting and stocking faulty yogurt, fail two for the store.  Finally, the staff at the store actually I thought I was the one in the wrong for taking issue with being sold leaky yogurt.  After all, they are all like that so they must be fine!  Fail three for the store.  Oh, and, as I was finishing up a guy at the next checkout line over was having the exact same yogurt experience but in the end he just accepted it and bought, for full price, the defective yogurt.  Fail four for the consumer who accepts what should be an unacceptable product.  As I said, the yogurt is a small thing, but all of the things that had to go wrong, all of the bad judgement or no judgement at all the contributed to getting to that experience in the checkout line are totally typical and unfortunately are not limited to yogurt.  Imagine for a moment when that sort of thinking (or lack thereof) gets applied to business deals, property transactions, policing, the judiciary, and foreign policy.  And now how about a collective heavy sigh.....

On a much, much lighter note, the bunnies are rogue no more!  Our gardener constructed a lovely little pen for them and they have not managed to escape yet after 4 full days of imprisonment.  They seem happy enough (it is honestly a bit hard to tell) and it is nice that the girls can come out and watch them from the porch whenever they want.  I am also hopeful that with some time and patience and lots of lettuce and carrots we may be able to get them a bit more comfortable with people such that they could occasionally be petted or held.  We shall see.

Bunnies in their new home

T enjoying her starter Brio set C just brought home from Germany.

She looks all cute and innocent....

One last shot of K from sports day last week.  If you look closely you see she still suffers from Schumitsch tongue.  The only real way to focus!

Bunnies and Birthdays

It has been so long since I posted that Blogger revamped its format and it took me forever this morning to figure out how to do a new post.  But I did, finally!

First, let me take this opportunity to introduce you to our new bunnies, Madeline (in white) and Beast (black and white), names courtesy of K.  Madeline is a female young adult and Beast is a teenage male so yes, it is quite possible that they will do what bunnies do and we will soon have several more bunnies.  But, these are yard bunnies, meaning they live outside, eat whatever vegetation they can scavenge and generally are only marginally cared for by us so I am assuming that through a combination of nature taking its course and the occasional donation of bunnies to someone else we can keep the population to around 5 or 6 total in the long term.  Originally, the plan was that the bunnies would just have the whole front yard in which to romp, and I had the gardener put up chicken wire on the fence thinking that would be sufficient to keep them in place.  Little did I know that I was dealing with very creative and very greedy bunnies!  They keep escaping into the back yard which is, of course, where the vegetable gardens are.  Now, I don't mind so much if they nibble on my garden as we never manage to eat everything out of it anyway, but they are also terrorizing the staff garden which is much more obnoxious and unacceptable so on Monday I will have the gardener build a large pen for them and they will have to stay in there.  How we are going to catch them to put them in said pen I have no idea, though I suspect the pool skimmer net may be involved...

Madeline and Beast being naughty, greedy bunnies and hanging out in our garden.

K and T are both doing well.  School is wrapping up over the next week and a half and K had sports day on Friday.  While the school provided a very elaborate and fun set up at a certain point the kids discovered a hill and realized that rolling down it was a lot more fun than anything else.

T is finally starting to use words to articulate thoughts which is making life somewhat easier, though frequently her requests are for things she just isn't going to get (most frequently juice... she is a little juice addict).  She also mimics absolutely everything K does, which is cute about 80% of the time and incredibly annoying the rest of the time.

T modeling dressy shoes with pj pants.  Quite a look!  And she makes that face almost every time anyone points a camera in her general direction.

In other news, K had her 4th birthday party last weekend.  No, her birthday isn't until July but since almost everyone leaves either to move on to their next post or to go home on R&R at the end of this month she would not have had any friends with which to celebrate.  I suspect this may quickly become a theme of life overseas with lots of early birthday parties.

We went with a dragon and unicorn theme, complete with two cakes, big chalk dragons and unicorns sketched on the playhouse (by someone with more artistic talent than I), a dragon and unicorn pinata and other assorted stuff and things.  Plus, as it was brunch, lots of mimosas and bloody marys for the adults. I think everyone had fun.  At one point we had a swirling mass of 30 or so kids in the back yard, which was a bit chaotic but mostly in a good way.  

K about to blow out her candles.

One of the rare "family" photos in which I am actually included.  Unfortunately, T's nanny was doing such a good job of keeping her entertained and out of the way we had no idea where she was so she got left out.  Poor second child. 

But, this is photographic evidence that she was present at the party!

The dragon- red velvet cake inside so he was nice and bloody when we cut into him.

The unicorn- made by using a silicon mold so the external shell is a mix of peanut butter edible clay and marzipan, decorated with edible luster dust and the inside was chocolate cake and chocolate pudding.

The calm before the storm.

K attacking an innocent, but candy filled, unicorn... I am note sure who thought it was a good idea to arm children with sticks, let them take swings at something, and then have them trample each other in a quest to gather fallen candy but who am I to mess with tradition.

Tafari!

 Last weekend we spent four days out on tafari (K's term) and it was amazing!  We were lucky enough to get to join some friends on one of the opening weekend for their lodge and they were doing a special trip for families (they don't usually allow kids) so it was a very special opportunity to share a great trip with the girls and not be terrified that our kids were the ones ruining things for someone else since everyone had kids and the blame could be shared equally.  

Friday morning we left the house by 6:30 and managed to miss all of the rush hour traffic and get out of town quickly.  The drive through the escarpment was fun, as always, since it involves a strange combination of broken-down vehicles, usually in the worst possible place, like a blind corner going up a hill (I think they do it on purpose), missing shoulder guard rails and the occasional remnants of minor rock slides!  Good times!  But traffic was light and the weather was perfect and we made good time to the lodge where we parked the truck and transfered to a boat.  

The two hour boat ride was surprisingly pleasant with both K and T taking short naps and the adults enjoying a lovely cold beer at 10:00!  That was just the start of a low level buzz that carried through the whole weekend.  If you have never had a Pimm's and lemonade you must have one.  Now.  No really, right now, go buy some Pimm's and lemonade and make one.  I'll wait....

Ok, that's better!  Keep sipping one of those every few hours for three days straight and see how wonderfully relaxed and blissed out you feel!  

After the boat ride we got settled in camp.  Our lodgings were what can best be described as a very high end tent.  The platform and frame and other aspects of the structure are built of wood and then the heavy canvas tent sort of sits on top.  But believe me, this is the most luxurious tent you have ever been in!  As most of you know, I don't camp, so you can rest assured that we were not in any way roughing it.  I think the bed may also have been the largest bed I have ever slept in.  It had to have been larger than a standard king... as in I think C must have also been sleeping in it, but he was so far away that I certainly didn't notice.  We also had space for a small cot for K and for T's travel bed.  The structure also had a great little porch looking out over the river.  The whole front of the tent overlooking the river was mesh so when the sun came up in the morning it was like the whole room would just start to softly glow, and then turn pink and then you could start to see the trees and river as you listened to the birds, monkeys and hippos waking up.  Somehow waking up to that at 5:30 is much less painful than waking up to my alarm clock at the same time.  Funny that.  We also had a hippo eating grass right outside at 3am on morning and you could totally hear him munching away and when I peeked out there was just this giant dark mass right there, which made me decide that a flashlight was probably a bad idea.

Elephants were really the theme of the weekend and they were doing their very best to put on a show.  We saw baby elephants, young male elephants trying to act big and scary, elephants bathing in the river, elephants swimming across the river, elephants blocking the road and making us turn around, elephants walking through camp, elephants doing pretty much any and all of the cool elephant things that they can do and almost always quite close.

The theme of the weekend for the kids was probably sand.  There was sand therefore there were happy children!  Holes were dug, castles constructed, race tracks graded, treasures discovered and re-buried.  We may still be finding sand in some shoes and hats a week later but who cares!  The kids were entertained.

We got to meet some great new people and all of the kids played nicely together and kept themselves entertained so most of the adults really and truly got to relax.  We ate absurdly well, I got to read almost an entire book, and felt well rested despite the early mornings.  Coming back to town and going to work the next day was a bit of a shock to the system but the whole adventure was a great reminder of why we live overseas.

K and I on our porch.  Look closely in the gap between the side of the tent and the wooden wall.  See him?  He wandered over and had a snack right in front of the tent and just hung out for a good 20 minutes.  So cool!

 This guy was trying very hard to convince us that he was scary.  Lots of ear flapping and some trumpeting.  This was one of those instances when having somewhat loud children in the car was less than helpful.

 T and K enjoying a carved friend.  The wooden hippo was probably almost as popular as sand and sticks.  The whole hoard of children would just have to sit on it any time they walked near it.

I like that the elephants are walking through in the background as is of cue... Ok, its day three, a herd of cape buffalo alone won't be impressive anymore, send in the elephants!

 K taking a photo of one of the two male lions we found.  We saw the same pair twice and this photo is from the first day we saw them.  They were obviously hungry so they were a bit skittish and I was trying to feed T her weight in jellybeans to get her to keep quiet because she kept wanting to say "hiiiiiii liioonn!!" loudly... and repeatedly...

 Same lion eying us suspiciously before slinking off into the bush.

 Just a few of the many, many elephants.

 K with a stick.  Literally drawing lines in the sand and telling people they could not cross them.  Good god!  We were at an old village site from before the area became a national park and all settlements were moved out.  We were looking for pottery shards and grinding stones and checking out animal tracks.  The kids loved it!

T relaxing and checking out some rocks.  We somehow managed to not let her get sunburned at all over the whole trip which is minor miracle and involved vats of sunscreen, several different hats, and making the poor kid wear long sleeves even though it was pretty warm.

The two male lions the second time we saw them looking fat, happy, sleep and sleepy.  This time the chatter from the girls did not even phase them as they were much to contented in their nice shady spot to be bothered by us.

This and that

We survived a rather hectic week with C traveling back in the states and me hanging out here with the girls on my own. You will notice that the photo array is a bit T heavy this week in large part because some children deal better than others with their father being out of town. Certain children, whose name I will not mention, left their listening ears at the airport when we dropped off C and have been more or less insufferable all week long. Lucky me! Other children have continued to be pleasant and charming, perhaps even increasingly so, and thus presented several opportunities for photography.

The other thing that apparently happens when C travels, in additional to K's head exploding into a million pieces, is that I impulse buy very, very large carved wooden hippos, so I am pleased to introduce Cleopatra, the newest addition to our family.

The weather here has been rather schizophrenic. We should be gently transitioning from rainy and hot to cool and dry but we are still getting sporadic rains including thunderstorms and have been having dramatic temperature changes requiring frequent sartorial corrections in order to adapt.

My frustrations with the utter and complete inefficiencies of pretty much all local entities were further increased this week when I was attempting to organize a program. Despite having initially contacted the organization involved well over three weeks prior to the event and having hand delivered the requisite formal letter (with 20 copies to be given to all of the other folks involved as there is no way they an actually make their own copies) we still found ourselves scurrying around two days before the event dealing with people claiming they had no idea what was going on. So, yet again, what should have been an easy, plug and play activity ended up sucking enormous amounts of time and energy. I have been taking all of this frustration out on my poor cuticles and fingernails which is a totally disgusting habit which I want to break so now, for the first time in ages, I have actually painted my fingernails. We shall see if this helps or if I just end up with scraggly, ugly, painted fingers, rather than scraggly, ugly, naked fingers.

Next week is yet another school break. How many breaks do these kids need, really? It is also coming in the wake of Wednesday being a day off for student led conferences. Why on earth does my almost 4-year old need to "lead" a conference? I don't know and I continue to think it is one of the more silly things that this admittedly overly touchy-feely, Kumbaya-ie school does. In essence, I spent 45 minutes playing with K in her classroom, including dressing up as a duck, reading several books and looking at the epic portfolios they create for all of the children. While I do appreciate seeing how her projects have developed over the course of the year (look! people have discernible facial features and limbs now whereas the were mere blobs of color at the start of the year) I am not convinced that I really need a 4 inch thick portfolio of exemplars to get the point.

That is about all. We all survived the week and C gets back and we start all over again tomorrow. Thank goodness we have Friday off and then are going away for a little much deserved quality safari time next week.

This is now what happens more or less whenever you point a camera at the girls. Charming!

T wants you to know there is a "izzard!!!!" on the wall!

Home Again, Home Again

After an amazing, whirlwind three weeks back in the states seeing family, eating, skiing, drinking, seeing friends, eating, shopping, drinking, and did I mention eating and drinking we are back in Africa and more or less back in our routine.

Did you know that the flight from Johannesburg to Atlanta is the longest multi-class flight in the world? In other words, it is the only way you can have the privilege of sitting in coach for 17+ hours! Other flights are longer in actual distance, but because of the headwinds this one takes longer in time, and there are a few business class only flights that are also longer but suffice to say this one is certainly up their as far as winning some sort of award for surviving it. Let me put it this way: you get on, eat dinner, go to sleep and even if you sleep for 6 or 7 hours you still have 8 more hours of flying to do before you get there! Doesn't that make you really want to come and visit! But we survived and the girls were as good as an almost 4 year old and 1 1/2 year old could possibly be under the circumstances.

Overall they were both great little travelers and really enjoyed the trip. K had a few moments when she would ask to go home, and then I would ask her which home she meant and she was just confused, poor thing. But I think they are both happy to be back and in their routines. We only suffered through a few nights of T being totally jet lagged and going to bed at her usual time only to wake up at 10pm thinking she had just finished a nap and it was time to play. Not cool! But it did not last long, luckily.

Being back has been interesting. It is always nice to come home after traveling and not be living out of suitcases. At the same time, we came back to a broken distiller, and some other assorted household repair issues which just made us sigh. It is also hard readjusting to the grocery situation after the bounty of U.S. stores. I know it is probably really great to live seasonally and only eat what is in the market and all of that, but wow it was nice to walk into a store in Utah in February and find strawberries, blueberries, you name it!

But we are back, back at work, back at school, pushing through the end of the rainy season and heading towards "winter"(if you can really call it that). We have some exciting trips coming up and hopefully the girls and I will finally get to see lions so I look forward to sharing that with all of you.

I went to a coal mine. It was awesome! Amazing the things they let you do when you are wandering around a mine in Africa as opposed to what would be allowed in the U.S> You want to walk up and get a photo with the drag line bucket? Sure! Want to take lots of photos of the waste coal that is smoldering and has been slowly burning for years? Go for it!

Girls in snowsuits. While they don't actually look all that happy in this photo, they both really enjoyed the snow.

T, the seasoned traveler, in yet another airport.

Punch children on a plane! Sort of like snakes, but worse!! For the record, this was after we had landed and were waiting to deplane, at which point I feel that all bets are off and the kids can jump on the seats and squeal a little if they want to. I generally do not let them do this in flight as I don't want to totally torture those around us.

Christmas in Africa, The Second

We survived a second Festive Season in Africa, though I feel like I am still catching up on lost sleep. School let out for K on Dec. 16 and doesn't start again until Jan. 17 so it is a long, long month of trying to figure out something for the girls to do every day. Shuttling them to and fro from various play dates is annoying, but they are having fun, even if I am not. December was filled with holiday events, some Embassy sponsored, some galas with locals, some just parties with other families. We had a few occasions of three or four nights in a row when we were out of the house. Suffice to say, our nanny did really well on overtime and my liver is still bruised and battered and in post-holiday recovery mode.

We hosted two other lovely families for a great Christmas dinner. We had a turkey and stuffing and BBQed ribs and garlic-cheddar mashed potatoes and assorted other yummy sides and desserts. We learned that the pigs here really just aren't as juicy and wonderful as those in the US. We used the exact same rib recipe that many of you have had the opportunity to enjoy in the past and while the flavor was great, they just did not end up fall off the bone tender, no doubt because there is such a scarcity of meat on each bone.

On the upside, we had a chance to trot out our hosting skills a second time for a New Year's day brunch for about 40-50 people. It is worth nothing that while it is rainy season, it had not rained for over a week. We had a tent set up in the back yard plus several tables and lots of extra chairs and were ready for the onslaught of kids to run amuck out back. But we woke up to rain... and more rain... and more rain. So we put Plan B into action and pushed all the furniture in the giant living room to the side (luckily the beer pong table was already disassembled) and opened up the guest bedroom as a second playroom after safely stashing K's new dollhouse back in our bedroom (had it been injured in the chaos I would have been heartbroken). So we squished 30 or so adults plus 20 or so kids inside for the first hour or so, which worked in part because the adults were all well lubricated with mimosas and bloody marys (from my homemade mix using fresh tomatoes from the garden). Everyone was happy, and everyone especially enjoyed the tenderloin sandwiches with horseradish sauce (horseradish courtesy of my parents, because you can't find it here) and the key lime pies (key lime courtesy of C's folks).

An interesting aside about beef. Butchering a cow here pretty much consists of cutting out a t-bone, the tenderloin and maybe one other cut and then everything else goes into "mince" (ground beef). So the ground beef is really good. And for whatever odd reason of economics that I don't fully understand the tenderloin is dirt cheap. I am talking $10 for a full tenderloin, what could easily be a $30 or $40 cut of meat in the U.S. thusly we ear a lot of delicious fillet. Enjoying it while we can!

The point of all of the above is that Christmas in Africa is a little bit different. It isn't so much about family, since very few either travel home for the holidays (though some brave ones do) or have family visit them. So we replace family with good friends... and a lot of alcohol. It also feels particularly consumer-ish as the kids torn into an absurd pile of gifts. If we had been in the U.S. then I would have brought the girls with me to shop for gifts for C, and for other family members but making them sit with me while I look for things on Amazon doesn't really have the same feel. We did go through their toys and pick out lots of things to give to the local Toys for Tots sponsored by our awesome Marine Security Guard Detachment, so that was good, but a certain feeling of the season is somewhat lost here.

As a final aside, we gave all of the Marines remote control helicopters as stocking stuffers and rumor has it they spent Christmas day flying those puppies around the Embassy atrium. Haha!

Enjoy a few photos from the chaos of Christmas morning:

Visitors

K was obviously much more interested in the visitor above than the one below.