On May 25th, Angola celebrated Africa Day along with most African countries.  All of the local embassy employees get together and plan a fun afternoon for the embassy community.  Everyone dresses up in their finest African clothing, especially the women.  They look beautiful in their dresses and head wraps!  Below upper left, the ambassador was in the spirit with a dress and headwrap combo.  Below right, Briant and his friend Casey, who heads back to a D.C. assignment next week.  Briant and Casey made the trip to Namibe together and had many late nights at the embassy.  Briant will be sad to see him go!

This year, they invited a group of young women to come to sing and play the drums.  They also danced a little, which got the local staff to loosen up as well and get dancing.  It was so fun to watch them and to see their bright happy faces while cheering each other on.  Some of the embassy local staff felt the rhythm and got in on the dancing.

I loved seeing all of my English students dressed up and happy.  Every day, they're in their custodial cleaning clothes and worker clothes as they work around the embassy grounds and in the houses of the American staff.  So it was amazing to see them all "cleaned up" and polished in their nice clothes.After the performing, they invited us in to eat from the beautiful spread of local food (very little of which we see regularly) they had prepared.As I was getting pics of the food, some of my students asked to get a picture with their "professora."  Gabriel and Lazaro, Claudia, and Geraldo and Ginga. 

Riquita (Briant's senior consular assistant and right-hand woman), Goncalvez, Ginga, and Geraldo, followed by Anna our nurse, Gastao, and John (our wonderful TDY nurse).We had a great time at our second (and last) Africa Day, and enjoyed seeing the culture that is often swallowed up and invisible in a bustling city of seven million crazy Angolans.  Hard to believe we'll soon be transitioning to Russian and Baltic/Nordic/Scandinavian cultural adventures in the snow.

Thomas has been working on his Year 6 Exhibition Project for the past 8 weeks.  It's the big year-end summative project where the kids show their ability to research, investigate, summarize research, and present their findings.  Parents have been asked to go to the school as well every week to let our children show us their progress on their project and practice discussing what they've learned.  On this day, Briant left work early with me to attend the exhibition.  When we got there, we had a few minutes before school got out, so Briant and I took a moment to wander the school grounds and see the fun plants and trees on campus.  Here is the fruit from the Baobab tree (the size of large zucchinis), some bananas, and Birds of Paradise, along with huge seed pods on an acacia tree.

This tree fascinated us.  We've never seen anything like it.  The trunk and every branch was covered in what looked like spikes!  A man working on the grounds told us that it's used in Angola to build canoes and drums.

Baobab tree on left along with pics of the colorful campus.  We arrived at the main campus just as Thomas' class was finishing up presenting songs that some kids had written.  Thomas also wrote a song about his topic "Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy."  He wasn't feeling brave enough though to sing it alone without Amahn, his exhibition partner who had to return to Pakistan due to visa issues.

After school got out, we had 3 hours to kill before we had to be back for the exhibition, so we went to the nearby mall for KFC and to stretch our legs indoors.  The changes in Angola since our arrival seemed particularly apparent on this trip -- we spent about USD$30 on dinner and games at a little arcade at the mall (one of two in Luanda) that would have cost us USD$170+ when we arrived.  The economic/fiscal crisis here has made Angola much more affordable for those of us with dollars but has made life very difficult for Angolans.

We returned to the school, and our Exhibition night started with the Year 6 students acting out a play.  They wrote the play based on the "14 Global Goals" that the kids' Exhibition projects were based on--gender/race/sexual orientation equality, education for all, access to adequate health care, turning from fossil fuels to renewable energy, gun control, etc.  The kids were so entertaining in the roles that they played with their individual personalities.  Thomas was on the piano with his Japanese friend Sakuya, doing the background music and adding sound effects to the performance.  They did a great job!After the play, we went to the library where all the kids had their projects set up ready to show.  Here is Thomas with Amahn on the left, skyping in from Pakistan at 11:00pm to participate in the Exhibition.   He chose the same topic as Thomas, so they had done some of their research and brainstorming together.  Amahn was a little tired, and with the whole library full of Exhibition presentations, we couldn't hear each other very well, but at least he felt like he was a part of the project.  The man on the right, Degaulnano, was one of Thomas' primary resources that he interviewed to learn more about solar panels and energy.  He was a wonderful mentor for Thomas throughout the project.  We as parents were only supposed to have a supportive role of asking questions and listening, allowing the kids to take the initiative and ownership and credit for their projects.  I think everyone was happy about that.  :)Parents and teachers walked around the room, listening to all of the students present their projects.  Projects on homelessness here in Angola, protecting animals, the dangers of the internet and social media with bullying, gender equality, etc.  Part of the project was for the kids to "take action" in some way, so it was fun to hear how the kids were taking action by collecting items for those that have lost their homes due to flooding, collecting dog food for dogs at a kennel that are starving, making fliers to educate others about gender inequality, etc.  For Thomas' action, he made a movie educating viewers about renewable energy, and made and hung up signs to remind teachers and students around the school to turn off lights when leaving a room.  Exhibition was a great way for the students to work on their presentation skills and build confidence in research and presenting it.  Both Briant and I were amazed at how eloquently the kids expressed themselves and the level of confidence with which they answered our questions.  This project was a wonderful way to end the year for Thomas.  A few weeks ago he told me that he "loves researching!"  I consider that a successful project.  :)

We took advantage of the time we had in the car on the drive home, to discuss some of the Exhibition topics, namely sexual orientation and gender identity, in a religious context.  We had a good discussion and were able to answer questions that the kids had.  While we agreed with some of the perspectives, we needed to clarify how they fit within a religious perspective.  I'm grateful for the casual, spontaneous setting in which we were able to discuss these important issues of our times.

A "museum of currency" that has been under construction forever just blocks from our apartment, was finally completed and opened to the public.  We've been watching its progress since we got here but didn't think it would be finished before we left Angola, especially in light of the current financial/currency crisis (the ironies here are cruel).  There are a few other museums here, but they are not nearly as nice as this one -- the quality was almost first world.  And a lot of the construction materials inside came from Angola (e.g., wood floors and granite).  It was built underground, and here is a view from on top and then from the bottom up.  My guess is that the old coins/notes have to be maintained at a certain temperature, and it's easier and cheaper to maintain that temperature underground.

We had an Angolan guide that spoke English pretty well, so Briant didn't have to translate.  He did very well and was friendly, so I wanted to compliment him on his English.  We really appreciated his help!

The museum had a small-scale replica of the Bank of Angola (in reality across the street) and a few rooms that are found in the bank.  Most of the furniture was original furniture from the 1950's when the bank was built, and they showed in videos how they refinished them.

The museum has coins and bills dating back to the 1500's.  They were organized in different cases, showing the different currency series and changes from one period of history to another.  The changes in designs and colors were prompted by changes in leadership, the country's independence from Portugal, and other political/war conditions in Angola.  It was all very fascinating, and our guide gave us a great history lesson during our tour.

We were also able to touch a gold bar, which only Briant was able to actually lift up an inch or so off the platform because of its weight and the awkward handling angle.  We also had fun putting together a large magnetic wall puzzle of an Angolan 5,000 kwanza bill (currently the largest currency note, worth a little less than USD$10 on the street right now).

There aren't a whole lot of places to take "field trips" here in Luanda and it's not safe these days to just  walk around, so we particularly enjoyed the chance to get out of the house and see something new, clean, and educational!