We hope you’re having a lovely Halloween. Before we get to that, though, a few more pictures from the conference in Kenya. First off, this is a pic of the largest swimming pool in Africa, which happens to be located at the Safari Park Hotel, where the conference was held. It is actually a string of pools that are attached to one another. This is just one of them. As you can see, it is quite showy.
This is the group of conference goers on the last night of the conference at the gala dinner. We wore Basotho blankets – it was my first experience with that! We had a good time, but we were all exhausted. It was a long week, and we were glad to return “home” last Friday.
My advice on Nairobi: Stay away for a few more years until they’re done with construction of the huge highway leading out of the city. It’s hard to get anywhere in the city right now, and thus one feels stuck at his/her hotel most of the time. Do feel free to fly into Nairobi on your way to beautiful things like safaris and Mt. Kilimanjaro (which I saw through the window of our plane on the way out!). It was too bad that we didn’t have time for a real Kenyan experience while there.
Okay, on to current matters! It’s a beautiful Sunday Halloween here in Maseru. It’s about 80 degrees out and feels a lot like Monzanillo, Mexico did last February (except there’s no beautiful beach to go to). Unfortunately, Jay has been under the weather, so we didn’t do much adult celebrating, but we did have fun at school with an extensive day of festivities on Friday. There was a parade and then a circuit of activities. Here’s us in our outfits:
It is the first Halloween in our lives where we’ve gotten sun burnt. We didn’t see that one coming! Definitely need to remember the sunscreen next year…
In the evening, we threw a dance party for the 6-9th graders. It was their first school dance ever, and it was a huge success. One family even donated use of a dance lights and fog machine from their lighting store. It made for a very festive atmosphere. Here are some pictures from the evening:
It was nice to chaperone a middle school dance in which
A) The kids actually danced (as opposed to going to a girls’ corner and a boys’ corner as can sometimes happen at a middle school dance) and
B) There were no public displays of affection or skirts sneaking higher and higher as girls and boys dance waaaaaaaay too closely.
I actually enjoyed being a chaperone….and I don’t say that very often. Anyway, Mr. Mott has promised them another dance before Christmas, and they are all very excited.
People here don’t really go trick-or-treating. It’s not a part of their culture, and it’s not safe to be outside walking around after dark, so tonight will be another quiet night in. Hope you are well and enjoying your Halloween festivities. Would love to hear from you soon!
~S&J
