Carnival Day

After hearing one of the kids excitedly shout, “This is the best day of my life!” I would mark Carnival Day as a success. Some of the children had a difficult time understanding the concept of collecting tickets to earn prizes, resulting in quite a few tears at the beginning of the day. They couldn’t comprehend why all of the tickets they received were marked “1 ticket” and all the prizes they wanted were labeled “3 tickets.” We tried to explain that if they saved their tickets, they would eventually possess 3 tickets and could then buy the prizes they wanted, but this was lost on them. Everyone was all smiles by the end of the day as they played with new toys, appropriately dressed in the apparel they had won. It was a tearful goodbye as all of the kids stood on the lawn poking their little heads through the fence and waving goodbye as we drove away. We can only hope that we’ve made as much of an impact on their lives as they’ve made on ours. You never know what the future may hold, and I’m forever hopeful that this isn’t the last time that I will be a part of these children’s lives.

Friday evening we went on a sunset sailboat ride, toasting champagne as we watched the sunset while sailing down the coastline. We were invited to a “trance” club in Cape Town later that night, and as this is something Amy has desperately wanted to do, we decided to be adventurous and check it out. Arriving in my usual getup of a denim jacket and riding boots, it was immediately apparent that we didn’t exactly fit in.  Girls in spandex dresses seemed to be swarming all around us, and the fact that we stood out became even more evident when another club goer told me that I looked like a “mommy.” We all laughed hysterically at this as we continued to draw attention to ourselves by dancing wildly to the techno beats of the DJ. Someone even made a comment about how “American” our dancing looked. I’m fairly certain that this was not a compliment, as our “dancing” consisted mostly of jumping up and down (Amy’s calves were sore the next day, that’s never a good sign) but we were having fun and carried on anyway. We managed to make a few friends, but I wouldn’t exactly say we were a hit at this club or that I’ll be going back anytime soon. Crawling into bed after 2am and having a 6 o’clock wake up the following morning reminded me of why I am perfectly content with our usual bedtime of 8pm. No more night clubs for mommy.

On Saturday we spent the day on a double-decker sightseeing bus to go to the areas we had left to see around Cape Town. We spent the afternoon in the Botanical Gardens of Kirstenbosch, but with only a few hours of sleep the night before, most of our time in the gardens was spent napping on the lawn. We then went to Camps Bay, a touristy town located right on the beach just below Table Mountain. We ate dinner as we absorbed what was quite possibly the most beautiful sunset I’ve ever seen. I can confidently say that we’ve now officially conquered Cape Town.

We spent Sunday recuperating since we’ve been on the go since our arrival and haven’t had very much down time. I was able to get in a good run before we went down to the beach and had a Bible Study. We have started to make the necessary preparations for our trip as we contemplate how to pack 13 days’ worth of clothes in one backpack – this is going to require some skill. Before we leave on our trip I intend to post a more detailed blog about our upcoming itinerary for all of the worried parents out there!

Carnival Day! We had to do what we could with some make-shift decorations

One of the girls outfitted with all of her prizes

Pin the beak on the penguin

Ring Toss

Amy and I outside Home of Hope

Bobbing for apples - it went much better this time than it did on the 4th of July

Wheel barrel races

The Wheel of Fortune

Prize Table

The 3 of us on the sunset cruise

View of the sunset from the sailboat

The 3 of us on the sailboat

Laura and I on the boat

All of us in the Botanical Gardens

Laura on the sightseeing bus

Amy and I on the bus - could we be more touristy?

Laura and I on the beach at sunset in Camps Bay

The sunset in Camps Bay