Spring break

The kids have had spring break for the past two weeks.  International schools take longer breaks to accommodate the families traveling back home or abroad somewhere for vacation.  After looking at places to visit in Africa, we decided to continue to save our money and Bri’s vacation days for a trip back to the states.  I was able to take work off for the two weeks and Bri was still able to take a few days off to relax and play with us. 

The first week or so of the break looked like this--rain, and lots of it. 

At night, we had a lot of thunder and lightning that often woke us up.  I took this picture when lightning flashed across the pitch black sky at about 2am.

The kids have stayed busy with little projects and games, making tents, and playing together.  A wonderful package came from Gma & Gpa P. that contained a number of fun, hands-on activities that entertained them for hours!  They also had a little time playing Minecraft on the Ipad, their favorite thing right now.  I still limited their electronic time because no matter what you give, it's never "enough."  :) Of course we had the typical sibling rivalry as they spent a lot of time indoors and together constantly.  But I was pleased to observe that by the second week, things calmed down a bit and they’ve gotten better at playing peacefully.  It’s always a joy when the fighting stops and I can hear laughter and excitement in their voices on a more consistent basis! 

Savvy was excited to call me in to my room to show me how she was "doing what the Angolan women do."  Her baby doll on her back and a load to carry on her head that is resting merely on a piece of fabric.  It definitely looks easier than it is although all of the Angolan women say that it is easy for them!

On a Saturday, we decided to take our car for the first time, out of the Luanda city limits.  We had planned on going to the beach because the day before was nice.  But alas, we woke up to rain.  Still, we ventured out with the hopes that the rain would stop as we got farther away.  Unfortunately there is still a lot of traffic driving on a Saturday out of the city, and the rain only made it worse.  Unbelievably, the street vendors that walk through the traffic to sell their wares were still out and about despite the rain.  I wanted to take a few pictures, but there are a lot of "smash and grabs" here where someone will literally smash your window and grab what you're holding or your purse/bag that they see through your window.  We had an American recently that was working here, get his cell phone stolen right out of his hand when he rolled his window down for a second to throw something out.  He had to fight to keep his bag from going out the window too.  :) Needless to say, I got pictures only when we were out of the congestion, moving at higher speeds.

The trees (in the pic above) are called baobab trees.  They are the National Angolan tree.  It was amazing to us how green Angola is outside of the city!  It's beautiful, and very muddy on rainy days.

We drove a few hours, about one hour past the traffic, and found a beach all to ourselves.  We played at the beach for about an hour despite the heavy sprinkle.  The waves were dangerously large and fast in speed for the kids to use their boogie boards, so we kept them out of the water. :(  But they still found shells and random items on the beach to keep them busy.  I packed some rice and beans and snacks to eat, so we ate real quick under the cover of the trunk hood, cleaned off as much sand and mud as possible, and hopped back in for our 2 hour drive home.  There was more driving than play time, but we were glad to get out of the crazy city, see some greenery, and play at the beach.

On the side of the road, next to where our car was parked (no parking lot, luckily we have 4-wheel drive to get out of the mud), was this beautiful area of greenery with purple flowers.  We feel almost deprived of nature here being surrounded by so much concrete and asphalt in the city, that it's always so refreshing when we see beautiful pieces of nature.  These pics aren't ones that I would think could come out of Angola!

On our way home, we saw these giraffe statues.  We're guessing this use to be an entrance to the beach, or was supposed to be an entrance.  It's run down and not used.  We liked the giraffes though.

The baobab tree again.

No street sweepers here, or good drains.  :) The muddy streets and "sidewalks" don't seem to faze any of the locals.  I felt guilty driving in my nice car though.  Below are people waiting to catch taxis in the rain.

If you look carefully at the pic below, you can see brown water from all of the dirt/mud that has washed into the ocean.

With the rain and lack of desire to sit in hours of traffic to go anywhere else during the week, we simply hunkered down in our apartment and had quality time as a family--which is how most of our time is spent here in Angola.  A blessing for sure really, even though we wish we had more to do and the ability to move around more easily.   Still, we enjoyed reading the first four books of “A Series of Unfortunate Events.”  We’ve been playing the board game “Ticket to Ride” ad nauseam (per Thomas’ OCD request), and watching 1970’s/80's movies from our childhood like “Pollyanna,” “Swiss Family Robinson,” “Escape to Witch Mountain,” "The Apple Dumpling Gang," and of course more "Little House on the Prairie."  We even pulled out the board game "Celestial Pursuit" that we've had for years, but had to wait until the kids could succeed at answering the trivia questions.  This is a game that both Briant and I have fond memories of playing as children.  

"The Apple Dumpling Game" inspired creative play for the kids.  Here Thomas and Savvy are acting out being robbers, and tying Rhea up.  I walked by to see what they were doing to Rhea, and got taken hostage as well.  :)

Luckily the clouds parted the second week of the break and we got to enjoy swimming almost every day at the pool of our home teacher once and the pool of some friends where we were cat sitting.  The  kids love racing, diving, doing cartwheels into the pool, and especially climbing on dad.  

 I loved this interaction with Savvy and Bri.  Savvy was feeling needy in the pool for one on one attention from Bri and I.  Here it was Bri's turn.  Savvy is not bashful about being in another person's personal space.  I laughed when I heard Bri's subtle humor in his sarcastic statement to her talking about their relationship, but really referring to their actual physical distance:  "Savvy, I feel like there's too much distance between us."

Thank goodness for dads!  They take a beating--a beating that I'm too wimpy to take in the pool or wrestling on land.  In our family, Bri and the kids refer to me as a "fragile flower." :)