Eight weeks in

Trip Start Aug 01, 2008

Trip End Jun 30, 2010

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Flag of Congo Pointe Noire, Congo
Friday, October 31, 2008

Eight weeks into school and things are going fine. The boys have been on a two-week break from their school (they have a six on, two off schedule), so we've been hosting them back at ours for this week and next. Fun and flabbergasting, exacerbated by a couple of late nights out this week: a surprise birthday party for Melanie and a Halloween party at her and Phil;s house the next night (on the 30th because they're leaving tonight for Scotland for a few weeks). As Oscar said, "Two parties right next to each other!" He went to the Halloween party as a policeman, while his partner policeman fell asleep in front of the tv before dinner as a result of the previous night's exuberance. There were about ten kids present and they went trick or treating along the darkened back hall, knocking at the bedroom doors for their loot.
Last week we went to a coastal version of an in-town restaurant. Impossible to find it again without assistance -- no signs along the bumpy sandy road through the hinterlands except for a white arrow on a piece of wood just at the last turn. It was another cool calm spot in the ocean, and the restaurant owner had a perfect three-kid blowup boat to play in. The seafood was typically great, although it's a new place and they didn't have ketchup in the inventory. That made eating a bit tough for our kids, who have decided that just about everything in their new diet tastes better with ketchup. We still forced them to choke down enough chicken and rice to make it through till dinner.
Swimming lessons continue to get better and better. Otherwise, things continue as normal. The rainy season still has not begun with any real ferocity, just a couple of rainy afternoons. When it rains it does pour, so it's easy to see how the roads will become other-worldly when they come more consistently.