Friday, May 2, 2014

The Easter Clown and Other Stories

I really thought I blogged just a few weeks ago and was a little mad at myself that I'd gone that long, only to realize it's been six weeks. Oops. I spent two of those weeks suffering from the nastiest GI bug I've had since studying abroad in Thailand in 2002, which thankfully has now left my system. Beyond that, it's been a fairly routine few weeks.

Easter weekend included an unexpected work trip that took one of our days off, but I did have a lovely brunch at the Serena with a fabulous group of ladies. In typical Ugandan fashion we showed up at 11:55 for a noon brunch only to find that a) our reservation was under an entirely different name (think Starbucks cup hilarity) and b) they were not quite ready. So we walked over to the spa, chatted with everyone's favorite masseuse, did a tour of the gym facilities, and went back down at 12:20 as instructed. Nope, still not ready, but they handed out sparkling wine to those who choose to imbibe. At 12:40 I got tired of this and suggested we just go find a table, even if the food wasn't ready. They didn't particularly like this but finally seated us and took drink orders. The few other expat groups who had been there since noon followed suit. Finally, at 1:15 the waiter took our soup orders. And then all the Ugandans, who know better, showed up, just in time for the buffet to open at 1:30. Typical U.S. Easter foods such as ham, lamb, scalloped potatoes, macaroni and cheese, etc. were missing. They did have an entire roast goat, turkey, chicken wings, lots of Indian dishes, and plenty of salads and starters. I did find hard boiled eggs on the salad bar. An enterprising person had colored eggshells - with magic marker (adorable!), and Easter brunch was made complete by a clown making the rounds and giving out balloons. We had a lot of laughs and stuffed ourselves with tasty, if not U.S.-traditional, morsels.

In very exciting news my mother and our good friend booked their flights to visit this summer, and in typical Sadie planning fashion I had our three weeks of safaris in two countries fully booked and had a twelve page itinerary ready to go within two weeks. Now to wait. (It probably doesn't surprise you that I was the first one in the Embassy to fully complete my EER this year, does it?) My mom and another friend visited me in South Africa in 2005 for three weeks, and we had a similarly packed itinerary, and I still count that as one of the best trips of my life, so I'm super excited for version 2.0 (wherein we can afford decent hotels and aren't sleeping on the ground in non-luxury tents). I really like my travel agent here (Global Interlink), so if you're planning a trip to the region, Mohit will hook you up with an unbeatable package. Every trip I've taken with him has been superb at an extremely competitive price.

Callaghan just jumped up on a bookcase, reminding me to share the latest in catertainment - the red dot. I don't know why it took me so long to get them a laser, but it's proven to be quite the exciting toy. Griffin in particular loves it and will sit on the coffee table staring at me until I pick it up. They both know where the light comes from and have tried to get to the source, but they're usually pretty content to go after the projection. Now to order more batteries for it!

Anyway, I have a few more posts scheduled for the weekend, and I will try to be better about updating in the next weeks. Only six weeks until I have another safari series to post :-).