Happy Father's Day

This is Dave's Father's Day Present.

Forgive the mess, we are packing and all our art is all stacked and ready to go.  

We saw this piece during Environment Week. Dave was strangely drawn to it, I was unconvinced. I thought it was a little creepy.  The second day we went back to look at it and there was a performance being presented by a local drama group.  It was presented all in Chichewa, so we enjoyed the action but had a little trouble following the plot.  After it was over a gentleman translated it for those of us who "haven't had enough time to practice our Chichewa."

The gist of the play was that a man fell sick and went to his local traditional healer*, we might  call him a witch doctor, to get medicine.  The healer did his best, but the trees that the medicine come from had all been cut down to be made into charcoal.  There was no medicine.  In the end the man died.

There goes the medicine. 

Right about then I knew that picture was coming home with us.

The title of the painting?  "Plant 10 Trees For Medicine."

*There are only about 2 doctors for about every 100,000 people here in Malawi.  For most people traditional healers are the only medical practitioners they will ever see. 

13! Alonzo is a TEENAGER!!! RUN!!!

I am still alive, I promise

Last you heard I was trying to purge the house of unwanted stuff, while the kids were at camp, and Murphy's law was in over drive. This week I am purging, packing, and organizing like a mad woman because the movers are arriving next week.  I am on a deadline here. Failure is not an option. Actually there is no failure, everything in the house right now is heading to Oman in one big shipment so actually I could quit right now and it would all be OK, at least until I start unpacking boxes.  I am setting things up so that future me doesn't have quite so many problems when the shipment arrives in Muscat, and so that things will go just a little bit smoother when the packers arrive.  I keep telling myself that I will thank me later.

So what else have I been doing other than preparing the house for pack out, swearing I will be more organized in Oman (even I have to say "Yeah right!"), and pre-packing things that are really important to me?  Is that all I do for the last few months at post?  Not hardly.

Earlier this month we celebrated Alonzo's 13th birthday, his actual birthday is tomorrow, but since I knew this week would be crazy, and some of his friends ditched the last week of school and left post slightly early for summer in the states, we celebrated early.  I can't believe he is going to be a teenager.  What the heck happened, and are really going to do this teen thing again?  I barely survived Dakota's teen years.  Dave and I have arranged a special treat for him, but I can't tell you dear readers since he also reads the blog.  You will have to wait, but trust me it is a very cool treat.

Lat month we made one last trip to Zambia for one last fabulous safari.  There is nothing like camping in Africa.  Was that a lion I just heard?  Yep, that was a lion.  Wow, the hippos are loud tonight. Ohh that elephant sounded really close, wonder what upset him?   And yes the animal do move through camp, but usually not until later in the evening after camp has quieted down, sometimes the sounds are right outside the tent.

There was one really scary moment this time, but the boys handled it well.  Shortly after dark, but long before the camp had settled in for the night, Dave and I walked from the tent to the bar to grab a soda (him) and a Mosi beer (me) before it got too late, and the animals started wandering through the camp.  Yes, Wildlife Camp has a bar, and a swimming pool, and hot showers. We really know how to rough it. As we walked by the pool on the way back to the tent we stopped short because there was a hippo standing on the path munching away.  Hippos are seriously dangerous animals and this thing was between us and our kids who we had left sitting outside the tent at our campfire.

We backtracked, alerted the staff who began shooing the hippo towards the river, and then circled waaaay around the hippo.  When we arrived at the camp we found two kids sitting in the car faces pressed against the glass, and the third hiding under a picnic table. Apparently this thing walked right by the kids on it's way from the lagoon to the river. Two of the kids went "Eeek Hippo!" and ran for the car before it got too close, the third went "It's too early, its not a hippo." and stayed his ground until it was really close when he went skittering off to the nearest shelter, the picnic table.  As long as he stayed quiet the picnic table wasn't a bad choice for dealing with a hippo then tend to treat large things like picnic tables and tents as if they were rocks and just walk around them.  Good thing it wasn't a lion or leopard though.

We've made our last trip to the swimming pool at the Tamerind club, it's just too cold now for swimming. We've made our last trip to Mua Mission with some friends where we bought the coolest Guli Wan Kuli carving.  We continue to go out Wednesday nights with friends to eat out.  Tonight is Chinese food.  Yummy!  I'm ordering the spicy tofu and the green beans. We have already said good by to many friends, I hope that someday, somewhere, our paths cross again. There are still more goodbyes to come.  SOB!  We have finished homeschooling this year, although we will continue with a much lighter summer school schedule after pack out is finished.  The boys are not real happy with me. Oh well, suck it up cupcake.

And now...I saved the best for last. In March David and I closed on our own little house in San Antonio.  YAY!  YAY!  YAY!  We are homeowners!!!

We are so excited.  It is little and cute and in the same neighborhood as most of our friends, and some of our family.  We've spent countless hours pouring over websites trying to decide what furniture we want.  We finally, just in the last few weeks, have ordered the beds for the kids, the dining room set, the sofa and coffee table.  We maxed out our airfreight sending mementos and stuff back to make the house feel like home.

San Antonio is our home base where we go every home leave and most R&Rs.  Which means either renting a house $$$$$ or camping at a relative's house. Our family has been very gracious to put us up, but if you have ever hosted someone for an entire month, or been the guest for that long, you know after the first few days it can be tiresome and difficult for everyone. Especially if you are hosting a whole flock of people and not just one person.

Backstory for the those unfamiliar with the foreign service, R&R is a privilege allotted to those of us serving at hardship posts to allow us rest and recuperate, generally once or twice during a 3 year tour. It may be taken overseas, or in the states.  There is no set time limit for R&R.  Home leave is a different beast.  Home leave is mandated by congress for 20 working days, in the states, for the purpose of repatriation.  For both of these we receive airfare, then we are on our own. This seems reasonable until you realize we are mandated by law to take a month long vacation, every 2-3 years.  Could you afford to stay in a hotel for a month?  Would you want to?  How about renting a car so you can get around? Rental cars and hotels are expensive.  If you don't plan carefully it is easy to come out of home leave or R&R with a huge mountain of credit card debt.  Often you end up camping on someone's sofa, and borrowing the family beater,  like a kid home from college, to cut a few costs. No more couch camping for us!  YAY!

We will have one week to turn an empty house into a functioning vacation home.  Why one week?  Because we signed all the kids up for camp that first week back in the states.  While they are at camp we will be unpacking, assembling, and shopping. I am giddy at the prospect.  When we had our house before the FS it was sort of put together haphazardly with hand-me-downs and bargain clearance items.  It was what we could afford back then.  This time we have been able to piece together a look that reflects who we are now, not what we can afford.  Don't get me wrong we have a budget, a really tight budget, but we have managed to cut corners here so we can splurge there, and it all seems to be coming together nicely.  Now all that remains is to see if what I am picturing in my head really works when it is all in the room together.  I will post pictures later.

Purge Update

So far I have no idea how weight much I have gotten rid because the scale is broken.  The generator ran out of fuel and the washing machine broke. The generator has been refueled and the broken washing machine replaced although he broken one is still sitting in my kitchen waiting to be picked up and removed for repairs.  So how is your week going?

Green Camp and the Great Purge of 2013

This week the kids are off at Green Camp.  In many, many ways Green Camp has been the highlight of our time in Malawi.  It is, I am almost certain, one of the things the kids will remember long into the future.  This week they will be celebrating all things nature, as well as preparing for the upcoming Earth Day celebration at Four Seasons. They will have a busy, fun-filled week, and I am happy for them.

In the meantime I am alone in the house, completely alone for the first time in months.  The house is eerily quiet.  For the moment I am enjoying a blessedly quiet cup of tea, but in just a few minutes I will be even busier than the kids.  This summer is pack out.  That means packing everything we own and preparing it to go to our next post in Muscat, Oman.

The movers will show up sometime in June and everything we own will swathed in miles of paper and bubble wrap, sealed in mountains of boxes, and loaded onto trucks.  If everything works the way it is supposed to we will see our stuff again in about 4, maybe 5 months at our new house in Oman.

That does't sound too bad does it?  It sort of sounds like the packers will do all at the hard stuff. Of course there is a catch.  There is always a catch.  The trick is that everything we own must weigh less than 7200 pounds.  Everything including clothes, toys, books, towels, any furniture we own, dust collectors, pots, pans, cutting boards, and everything else  that turns an echoing house into a functioning home must weigh less than 7200 pounds.

This week I will be going through every closet, box, cabinet, and drawer purging our house of all that is needless weight.  FUN!  More fun than you can imagine.  It is both totally necessary and totally incompatible with homeschooling, so it must be accomplished this week.  While the kids are at camp.  So much for my dreams of hours of reading, lazing about enjoying the quiet.

I will be posting the weeded out weight each day.  I know you are thrilled to know how much trash, junk and broken toys I manage throw away each day.  There you have it, the oh so glamorous life of the foreign service spouse.  Jealous?

Things Diplo-Kids say

I was watching an episode of House Hunters International on AFN this afternoon. It featured young newlyweds moving to Spain so the husband could teach English.  The boys were a riot.

First they seemed puzzled as to why the show kept repeating how hard it was to move overseas to a country where they didn't know anyone.

"What's so hard about that? We do it all the time" 

Finally they allowed that it would probably be harder if there wasn't an embassy community waiting at post with CLO events so they could meet other kids. They still thought they were making too much of it.

There several comments about how maybe we should think about bidding on Spain because it looked cool. Don't even talk to me about bidding until we get to Oman and have unpacked our HHE, please.

The kicker was at the very end of the show when they reviewed the 3 apartments featured, in the end the young couple didn't choose the expensive but cute apartment in an area of town where there were lots of expats, not did they choose the cheaper beachfront apartment with no oven and a long commute.  They smartly choose the cheapest apartment, in walking distance from his work.

The apartment came complete with very funky old tile floor that clashed badly with the aging sofa, a giant dining table in the middle of the living room, and seemingly endless halls between rooms.  In short not exactly their dream home but practical, leaving them money to explore the country of Spain.

Alonzo almost jumped up and down as he yelled,

"It's perfect, it looks just like a diplomat's home!!"  

Wordless Wednesday - Happy Anniversary Babe! Fourteen Wonderful Years!

Cape Town - Day Six

We spent today at the Kirstenbosch Botanical Gardens. What a magnificent setting for a garden.  Lush green gardens surrounded by towering mountain peaks.  Just gorgeous.  I enjoyed the plants, Dave enjoyed the walk in clean air, the boys enjoyed the animals: birds, butterflies, frogs and a leopard tortoise completing our Little Five (Rhino  Beetle, Elephant Shrew, Ant lion, Buffalo Weaver, and Leopard Tortoise).  It was a good way to round out a wonderful week of vacation.

Today is our last day here in Cape Town.  If I have my way we will be back again someday.  It is currently my number one dream post, who wouldn't want to live here?!!?  Since it's our last day the kids are watching a movie while Dave and I try to stuff everything we brought,  plus all the stuff we bought in our suitcases, so I am not going to take the time to try uploading pictures tonight.  I will try to post some pictures tomorrow when we are back at home in Malawi, assuming the internet is actually working.

What a wonderful place for a vacation.  If you are FS who will have to transit Jo'burg on you way to post or back the the states you should really consider cost constructing a week in Cape Town as part of the deal.  It is SO completely worth it.  The cottage where we stayed (The Tarragon) is fantastic! I will have more up about it sometime next week, or you can contact us for more information.

Cape Town - Day Five

Today started with really cool cars, the kind most of us only dream about.  Franschoek Motor Museum exhibits 80 cars at a time, although that have many more in their collection, everything from the earliest model T's to Formula 1 race cars. As an added bonus the museum is in the stunning grounds of a vineyard. Gorgeous.

Then we stumbled across Butterfly World which had butterflies, lots of gorgeous butterflies, but also monkeys, birds, and reptiles.  One of the birds stole the button off the top of Colin's hat but gave it back when David held out his hand and sternly ordered the bird to "Give it back!"  I wish the kids listened as well as that bird.

Next came Cool Runnings dry land luge where all the boys felt the need for speed. Ok so maybe the parents did too.

We ended the day with dinner at a beach side restaurant. The wind was really blowing so we were glad to be able to eat indoors out of the wind.  The boys were hoping to play on the beach afterward but trying to walk on the beach was like getting sandblasted so the walk didn't last long.

Cape Town - Day Four

Today we were supposed to go diving with the  sharks.  I say "supposed to" because mother nature didn't cooperate.  We woke up to a rainy sky and quickly received a call canceling the trip due to high sea states.  The boys were upset and some tears were shed, but frankly I was a bit relieved. I have a history with sea sickness, and somethings time just doesn't ease the memory.  As cool as it would be to swim with the sharks, I'm sure me barfing or dry heaving the entire trip would put a damper on things.

Instead we headed out to Imhoff Farm.  It didn't exactly match the pictures we has seen online.  Dave and I were a bit let down.  The boys were happy with the reptile exhibit; Colin was thrilled with the kudu and ostrich biltong (jerky) he bought in one of the shops; and lunch was really good too, so I guess it was worth the trip.

Everywhere we have driven outside of town we have seen sign after sign warning about baboons.  The funny thing is we haven't seen a single baboon.  We've seen lots of "caution baboon" signs, a few baboon rangers (says so on their jackets!) and some baboon poop (as identified by Colin), but no baboons.  I'm afraid of baboons, but at the same time I always enjoy seeing them, from a safe distance, or from inside my car.  Maybe we will spot some tomorrow instead of just more baboon signs.

We stopped at Long Beach to watch the surfers.  It was the first time the boys or I have seen surfers in real life before.  I would love to learn to do that, it looked like so much fun.  Although maybe I would want to surf someplace with warmer water.  Grayson bored of the surfing quickly and found a friend to play with while the rest of us were checking out the action on the waves.

In the afternoon we headed out to the beach.  Boulders Beach.  The thing that sets Boulders Beach apart is penguins.  We stopped there earlier this week on the way out to The Cape of Good Hope to get a quick look at the penguins, but the boys wanted a chance to swim there.  Good decision, it is a sheltered beach with calm waters. There are boulders to climb on, sand to dig in and every once in a while a penguin swims up to see what you are doing. It made for a great afternoon.

Cape Town - Day Three

Today we woke up to rain.  So instead of heading to the beach we headed into Cope Town down to Two Oceans Aquarium.  So did everybody else in town.  It was seriously crowded but we had lots of fun anyway.

By the time we left the aquarium the weather had cleared, so we grabbed some lunch then headed up on the ferris wheel to get a look around.  I don't like heights so it took me a while to actually open my eyes, but I'm glad I did.  It was a great view.  There were some parasailers out by table mountain, don't think I'll be doing that anytime soon, but it was cool to watch.  And while we were up there we were able to spot our next destination and figure out how to get there.

We wandered around playing tourist, watching the street performers and acting goofy.  Grayson was even drafted by a troop of dancers and acrobats to do a bit of fire dancing.  We did a lot of window shopping and a little souvenir shopping.  Colin finally found something to spend his Christmas money on, he is now the proud owner of a furry hide.  It's antelope of some kind, I can't remember which one - springbuck maybe, but it doesn't really matter because he is happy with it.  In fact he is asleep in bed under it right now.  LOL!

The boys had been grabbing brochures at every tourist sight in town and the one place they all wanted to see was the Diamond Museum.  It was very small but fun. Dave learned that 1 carat is 0.2 grams. The boys got to dress up as old-time miners.  At the end of the tour we were led into the showroom of Shimansky because, as it turns out, the museum is a gimmick to get you into the showroom.  Not a problem.  I love sparklies, and pretty much everything in the showroom sparkled, a lot!  If you go earlier in the day you can actually watch the jewelers and diamond cutters at work creating more beautiful sparkly works of art, we arrived late in the day so the workers had already left but the boys still spent a lot of time staring at all the special tools and work benches.  Sadly I didn't get to by anything, not today anyway.  Oh well, there is always tomorrow and think I saw some Tanzanite with my name on it.

Cape Town - Day Two

For our second day of vacation in Cape Town we headed south, as far South as you can go and still be in Africa. The Cape of Good Hope was David's choice of South African activities.  We saw so much more than we expected.  There was the ostrich we sighted on the way there and the zebra we spotted on the way out of the park.  I had no idea this trip would turn into a safari, but with my boys I wasn't much surprised. I think jet lag has caught up with me as I am too tired to deal with posting pictures.  That will just have to wait until tomorrow. Good night, y'all!

It Has It's Benefits

One thing everyone (and by everyone I mean all my girlfriends back in the 'hood) says when I am home in the states is, "I don't know how you do it, I could never do it."  By "it" they mean living overseas, moving every few years, and giving up things like pretty furniture, housing choices, and control over where we are going live next year.

*EYE ROLL*

Oh please!  Virtually everyone who said that to me could not only do this, they would do this with far more grace and far less complaining than me.  I think they just aren't willing to live with Drexel Horrible furniture.

But, just in case you, my  girlfriends back home, think this FS gig is all sacrifice and hard work interrupted by the occasional ball, let me tell you what I did today as you tried to get your kids up and back to school on this cold winter day.  I woke up late-ish to a sunny summer morning and had breakfast on the terrace looking up at the mountains.  After that we decided to go up Table Mountain, but the lines were ridiculous so instead we went to World of Birds Wildlife Sanctuary which was great, well except for the monkey that peed on me and Colin (people wonder why I hate monkeys) the nasty thing snickered as it peed, I swear it did.  The birds though were amazing, especially the owls.

For lunch we went to Dunes right on the beach in Hout Bay, great view, good food too.

Then we went back to Table Mountain where the lines had totally vanished. Up the cable car we went and we spent the rest of the day there.  Amazing!

So there you have it.  Yes, the Foreign Service comes with some sacrifices and disadvantages, like ugly furniture and living a million miles away from family and friends, but it definitely has its advantages too.  Like vacations in places we would otherwise see only on the travel channel.  Tomorrow we are heading down to The Cape of Good Hope for a day of penguins, fun in the sun, and hopefully a few other surprises.