9th birthday African style!

Megan had a good 9th birthday last week. It started with pancakes for breakfast until I noticed the skillet was not staying hot. We ran out of gas for our stove! So with skillet (still with uncooked pancakes) in hand and a few other essentials, we got in the truck and went to the guesthouse for pancakes. "A party in a truck" is what our friend, Lucretia, called it. Megan and Caralina then went to the homeschool co-op and took cupcakes which Megan had decorated. When we returned to the orphanage, we saw a bunch of little girls running toward our house. They had been waiting all day to "water" her. It is an orphanage tradition to pour basins of water on the birthday person. Megan was pretty resolved to the fact that she was going to be watered and she let them get her.

We then went out with the missionaries from the orphanage for pizza that night. When we returned, we invited some of the little girls next door over to decorate the rest of the cupcakes.

We went to Kampala and Entebbe the next day to take a short term missionary to the airport. We used the opportunity to take the kids to the Botanic Gardens for Megan's birthday. It was fun to get away as a family and see some of Uganda. The gardens are beautifully set at the edge of Lake Victoria. We got to see lots of neat birds. At the end, we had not seen the monkeys but a guy came and told us where they were and he would take us there. We declined knowing he would then expect some money for his service. We later got in the car and went where he told us. We found bunches of monkeys and were glad we were in the car as they even climbed the up on the windshield and looked in.
What a fun way to celebrate her birthday!