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.

Turkey, Crocodiles, and Termites, Oh My!

We had a lovely holiday weekend out here, even if we were at work all day Wednesday and Friday. Thanksgiving itself was a low-key, family-only affair, after having spent Tuesday and Wednesday night out with friends at other events. This meant we had a lot of food for two adults and two small people. We kept things pretty classic: Turkey, flown in to our Commissary through what lengthy, expensive, and circuitous route, I don't even want to know (brined overnight before roasting); mashed potatoes (which K actually ate and liked for the first time meaning she might be related to me after all as I have never met a potato I didn't like); gravy (probably my first real success with making gravy, I was very excited!); stuffing (from a box) cranberry sauce (from a can); spinach cooked with onions and bacon; and, of course, the always traditional loaf of crocodile shaped bread! As you can imagine, we barely even put a dent in the food day of but we have been working through our leftovers with a great deal of dedication.

Know who likes Thanksgiving? T does! Well, more accurately, she likes almost everything and is just a happy kind of girl.

After working on Friday we took off down to our favorite lodge just to get out of town for one night. The rains have finally arrived so it poured for the whole morning, but was just easing off as we arrived, and by the time we finished lunch, and group nap (everyone actually slept at one time, a holiday miracle!) we were able to go out on the boat. The girls enjoyed their new life jackets. And yes, it took me four trips down before it occurred to me that life jackets would probably be a good idea for my small, non-swimming children while boating around in waters literally infested with hippos and crocodiles. I may just miss that mother of the year tiara this year. Oh well, such is life, better late than never.

C made several attempts at taking a photo of me with both girls... this is the only one in which two of the three of us look half-decent (and I will leave it to you to decide which two!).

So we got a nice dose of hippos and elephants, probably for the last time until after the rainy season, so sometime in March or April. The lodge was lovely, as always, and they take great care of us. The one small hiccup in this trip was that while we had already had a few heavy rains up in our home town, this was the first heavy rain down on the river which meant... flying termites! Apparently, once a year, after the first big rain, the termites come out, fly around, then lose their wings and pair off to go and start happy new termite families. They are harmless... but creepy, and their wings are really loud, so when they started swarming about I was trying very hard to stay calm to keep K and T calm but was inwardly freaking out. The show only lasted about an hour and then the ones that survived went about their newly wingless business and the others were eaten by frogs, lizards, ants, people, etc. We survived, had an interesting experience, and some of us were very tired on the way home today.

A Conversation

C and I were lucky enough to get out of town down to see the falls for one night without the girls. We got back and were excited to share our adventures with K and T. While we spent most of the time relaxing by the pool and catching up on reading and sleep, we did go out on a walking tour of an island by the falls, that also includes the opportunity to swim out to something called the "devil's pool" which is a natural feature at the very top of the falls that is almost like a small swimming pool which allows one to jump in and be literally at the top of the waterfall in relative safety (I was, and am, skeptical, and, as many know, do not like swimming in rivers, lakes, streams, oceans, etc. so I remained behind on dry land). So C went out and did the devil's pool and though it was totally amazing and was excited to tell K all about it over dinner. The conversation went something like this:

C- Can I tell you about my what I did today?

K- Sure

C- Do you remember the big waterfall? The one we went and visited? Well, I swam out on the very top of it how cool...

K- Daddy, that is very very dangerous, I don't like that.

C- But it was really cool and...

K- Swimming on waterfalls is not safe, you shouldn't do that. I am really not happy. I am a little sad.

Me (trying not to laugh but unable to resist the urge to join in)- K, I just want you to know, Mommy did not go swimming by the waterfall.

K- That is good mommy, I am very proud of you, but not of you daddy, that was very not safe!

This went on for a good 15 minutes with K scolding C in the greatest of sincerity with much finger wagging and expounding upon how it wasn't safe and he could have fallen and gotten very hurt and gotten lots of bad germs and there were monsters. Pretty much all of the worst possible things her little mind could come up with. All of this totally unprompted by me, I swear. And C and I just sat there trying sooooo hard to take her seriously.

I still think she is right, and it does look not very safe...

An Owl and a Peacock Walk Into a Bar...

We just wrapped up a weekend involving two really fun Halloween themed events. One was a "Trunk or Treat," which involved parents parking and decorating cars in the school lot and then handing out candy. That was Friday night and started a bit late, so because we had a car and had to stay for the duration K spent at least half of the event in the front seat watching video on the iPad. She does not do well much after 7pm, but was a trooper nonetheless. The Trunk or Treat event also involved a lot of locals and other international folks which was funny because many clearly had no idea about proper trick or treat protocol. Such as saying "trick or treat" or opening up your bag so I can drop candy ("sweets") into it. No really, release your death grip on the top of the bag! Opening it is the only way to get more candy. That being said, pretty much everyone was in costume, some of them quite elaborate, and everyone seemed to enjoy. And it was a heck of a lot nicer than the shake down style of trick or treating we got in our Minneapolis neighborhood when teenagers not even attempting costumes would just show up at the door. Not wanting our house to get egged (or worse!!) of course we forked over the candy. So this was much better than that!

The second event was in a small neighborhood (think less than 10 houses) where the kids could just wander around safely. Everyone donated candy so the residents weren't on the hook for candy for all the kids. And the kids could do as many loops around the neighborhood as they could before candy ran out. K did not quite fully grasp the candy collection concept and kept wanting to just stop and eat the candy (not a bad idea, really).

So, for those lucky few of you who have not had to suffer through our pedantic description of the origins of the girls' names, it is important to know that K's middle name is the name of the Greek goddess of war while T's middle name is that of the Greek goddess of peace (feel free to go and look those up, I'll wait...). As such, the owl is K's emblem or icon of sorts. And T is also named after a Byzantine empress and those folks were all about the peacock in their royal iconography. So, the owl and the peacock! I decided to take advantage of what will certainly be my last opportunity to influence T's costume choices and of poor T's small helplessness in general to put them in the costumes I wanted for them, which also happen to be darn cute if I do say so myself. I did briefly consider letting K pick her own but the conversation went something like this: Me: "What do you want to be for Halloween?" K: "A princess!!! No, a lion!! No, a dinosaur!!! No, a princess!!!." And, repeat...

So, without further ado, I present the Owl and the Peacock in all their avian splendor.

Weather Report

Lusaka, Zambia- 97 and Sunny

You will find us enjoying Zambian Independence Day here:

One!

Happy Birthday Teddie! Successfully kept more or less in one piece for a whole year!