When I woke up and saw the nice overcast sky on Saturday, I knew it was our chance to enjoy a walk without too much heat and humidity. So we excitedly fled the apartment on foot. The kids wanted to take their Ripsticks and skates to use at the Marginal (the only nicely paved sidewalks in this city where you won't kill yourself riding something), but we feel that it's too risky to use them outdoors here. We draw attention to ourselves as it is with our Caucasian skin and walking around as a family. I don't think I've ever seen a whole family walking together in the almost 5 months that we've been here. Everyone is usually walking alone or with a friend or with a baby wrapped onto a woman's back. In fact, I rarely even see couples walking together or holding hands. Maybe that's why when Briant and I were walking together after work one day holding hands, some guy commented, in somewhat of a mocking way, about "the happy couple holding hands."
This is a nice Bank of Angola on the other side of the street from the Marginal.
New construction everywhere...literally everywhere.
A new Museu da Moeda (museum of coins) that is being built mostly underground. Conveniently located across from the Marginal.
The kids took advantage of anything that looked fun to play on. :)
The little grassy hill that Savvy said reminded her of the Christensen family that lived across the street from us in Utah. Their front yard had a small downward slope and on Sundays they would go out as a family and hangout together there. It's fun to see what sparks our memories of home.
After laying down for 30 seconds, the kids were up and at it doing cartwheels, handstands, headstands, etc. They're all into gymnastics right now, and they finally had a somewhat soft surface to practice on. It's better than the tile at our apartment! Really this is the only grassy surface around, except for the area directly across the street from our apartment where the homeless sleep all day and we're pretty sure it's full of bodily fluids. I'm not so sure that the dead spots on this grass aren't caused by public urination either now that I think about it. :) The beautiful Marginal was built without any public toilets. So sadly the public urination happens there as well.
The kids needed help holding their handstands.
After this picture was taken, about 4 minutes after we started playing on the grass, a security guard came and told us that we couldn't be on the grass. After feeling free and safe in the openness of the Marginal and free to move around as we are not able to in the apartment, I don't exaggerate when I say that in the moment that the guard kicked us off, I felt smothered. I literally felt my chest tighten up again. I felt "cooped up" in my body--constrained by the walls and tile of the apartment, the high rises all around me directly outside my windows, the incessant barrage of noises from the streets below, and the streets and sidewalks consistently full of hustling and bustling cars and people. It's enough to make you crazy if you have nowhere to escape to. On a day to day basis, we're fine with it and we love many aspects of the city life. It's just that on days where you want some more freedom and then you get a taste of that freedom, only to have it yanked from you, well it's frustrating. Needless to say, when we go back to the states, we might embarrass ourselves by acting like a bunch of feral animals when we go outside, especially if we're at a public park! I'm told that we'll feel better once we have access to our own car here. We're still waiting for the license plates in order to drive it even though the car has been in Angola since the first week of January. We were told that we would have the plates a few weeks ago. And for the past few weeks, we've heard that it should be any day. :)
At least we found a few more things to play on: A broken zipline that Thomas is hanging on.
Bri trying to make the teeter totter ride a little more exciting for the girls. Rhea found it a lot more exciting when she flew off of it. :)
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