Randomness and Shenanigans

Yesterday we went on a little girls trip to Memoria - that's the local... erm... 'mall.' I suppose you would call it.  It most resembles a flea market.  Outside, makeshift stalls made out of wood with tin or plastic roofing.  A pallet-type table stretches across the stall whereupon piles of clothes, shoes, underwear, bras, fabrics, sheets and other such textiles are carelessly strewn about.
 Hanging from the stalls on home made hangers are the clothes that have been sorted - and you can expect to pay at least twice as much for those.  There are plenty of brand names available - from Wal-Mart to Tommy Hilfigger, Holister, Keen, Gap, and everything in between.  Stores from the UK and the States will ship overstock or 'damaged' goods over in bundles.  It's kind of like TJ Maxx or Marshalls barfed onto a flea market.  :)  Anyway, it was lots of fun - while we don't need clothes or shoes (yet) it was great to scope it out, and I found some super cute fabric that I'm going to use to decorate my classroom, it's a big tablecloth and it was only 2000tsh. (negotiated down from 3500tsh) which is only about $1.25.
I didn't get many good pics because I was trying to be inconspicuous about it with my phone - but here's one.

Afterward one of the ladies invited us for tea, so we obliged and it was wonderful.  Good laid back girl time enjoying the beautiful spring weather.

Today was our first Sunday in church - we forgot to ask for a ride last week before it was too late, so we went to the Church of the Holy Pillow then enjoyed the FHC live stream over dinner.  Anyway, we had to photograph our first (of many) Sundays at ICC! :)

Photo Credit goes to Mandee - asante dada! :)

So the church service is structured very similar to FHC - the kids stay in service for worship and prayer then go to kids church during the sermon.  Kids church was just out in a little alcove to the side of the main sanctuary (which is open-air, under a tin roof with plastic lawn chairs for 'pews').  I was peeking into the alcove to try and spot Owen when Mandee leaned over and assured me, "Don't worry, there's no way out of there, he'll be fine."  To which I replied, "Oh I'm not worried! I just wanted to spy on him."  Her husband Brian is the childrens' pastor and he has about 10-12 kids in there ranging from 2years old to 12 I think, I had full confidence that between him and the older kids O would be just fine.

Then about 1/3 of the way through service Owen comes wandering across the front of the 'stage' area, just meandering around looking for us.  Mandee spotted him and directed him to our isle.  

Uh. Huh.  No way he can get out huh?    ;)   

After church the tradition is to go to Uhuru which is a hotel/restaurant and the only one in town that has anything resembling a playground.  It's a great place for the kids to run around while the parents have some adult time and it was great sitting under the shade of a tree, munching on some chicken & chips while the littles played.  It's bitter sweet to me how independent Owen is - especially here for some reason.  He just goes and plays down there all by himself.  I watched him climb three levels up the jungle gym on his own, climb onto a swing by himself, and get teetered on the teeter totter by 5 year old Cyrus, get pushed on the merry-go-round by little Harper, and then join in with the big kids as they created a make-shift basketball hoop out of some discarded pipe. (below) Then, realizing they had no ball to shoot into the hoop, they all removed their flip flops and used them instead.  Love the creativity and simplicity of it all - they had a blast and it kept them entertained for at least 20 minutes.  

After Uhuru it was already 3pm, so we came home with the agenda to relax.  O missed his nap (do not love the timing of church service here :-/  ) so we let him put in a new movie about trains and airplanes and relax on the couch.  At the end of the train portion of the (rather lame) movie, it showed Santa on the back of a train tossing candy to kids (safe, right?)  Anyway, Owen says, "Who's that?"  To which Bill & I look up and and Bill says, "Huh, I guess he wouldn't know who that is, huh?"  (We don't teach him to believe in Santa- but that's a whole 'nother post!) So Bill asks him, "Who do you think it is buddy?"  "Noah!" Owen exclaims, super proud of himself for recognizing one of his favorite Bible characters (we read the story of Noah on the Bible app on my phone almost every morning, by his choice).  "Yea, I guess that does look like Noah, good job buddy!" I told him. And we left it at that.  :)   I told you there would be shenanigans in this post.

Bread goes moldy here super fast if you leave it out (no preservatives, yay! - homemade penicillin - ew!) Anyway, we found that out the hard way and had a few rolls sitting out to give to the chickens.  We gave them a couple yesterday and a couple today.  Owen thought the chickens would want to share with him on both occasions and definitely took a bite of the bread both times he went out to give it to them.  Who needs antibiotics?  :-/

Three nights ago our night guard came to do his shift and he was wearing a Charlotte Hornets winter jacket.  You know, the pullover kind that were all puffy and big and swishy and had a half-zipper on the front.  Yup.

Today we had leftover pancakes for breakfast and Owen asked for "that" as he pointed to the syrup (which he normally just calls dip).  I said, "Oh you need more syrup?"  He looked at me, looked at the bottle and perfectly enunciated, "Syr-UP?"  And then proceeded to use it in a sentence at least 5 times afterward because he was so proud of himself for learning a new word.  "Papa I got more syrup!"  "That's the syrup"  "We have pancakes we put syrup dip on it!"  It was cute.

I'm pretty excited for tomorrow - we should find out two REALLY cool things tomorrow but I don't want to spill the beans until we're certain so I'm just going to leave it at that.

See.  More shenanigans.   :)