Welcome Back Party

At dinner the night before I left, Tini and I were chatting about having a party the day I got back because it was a public holiday for the late King Sobhuza's birthday. Tao, our local Swazi friend, quickly jumped in and said, "we only celebrate when people leave not when they come back". Wednesday at "Sobhuza's Booza" he admitted he had spoken too soon.

The theme of the day was a good oldfashioned game day. This included water balloon toss, which obviously just turn into water balloon fights. Unfortunately, they do not sell water balloons here so regular balloons had to be used. These do not break as easily...I still have a couple bruises. We also did the egg toss. Nick and I were the champions of this and successfully defended our title twice. There was also the sack race and the three legged race. I attempted to add the videos of these two events. I was slightly hesitant to add these because I did not win either one, but I overlooked my own pride for your amusement.

The best part of the day though was that Tini had arranged for a bouncy castle. We had been talking about this for months. Of course, our grown boys could not just jump in the castle like you are supposed it. Instead they created a modified high jump, which entailed running up the slide then attempting to launch yourself over the castle wall with the least amount of contact onto the bouncy floor. Tao, not surprisingly, was the best.
Nick was a close second.

But my leaping ability left a lot to be desired. That's when I decided that maybe my talents would be better utilized caring for the newest addition to the local family, Alex, so his dad could try as well.

We eventually turned the castle over to actual children. It is crazy how quickly the neighborhood children multiplied when word got out. They had a ball.

Yesterday, Tini and I completed the return celebration by enjoying a nice day on her couch complete with NikNaks (local cheese curls that are so tasty), a heater under her duvat (probably a fire hazard, but much needed and well worth it), and movies. We managed to make it through Office Space, Best in Show and Bridget Jones' Diary before moving off the couch.

Making a long post short, it is good to be back!