Friends and Family Afternoon

A couple weeks ago we had a bunch of our friends and their families come to our house to spend a Saturday.  To invite more than one family at a time is fun, but magnifies the chaos by about a billion, because inviting someone's family here is not the same as inviting someone's family in the States.  Here, if you say say "family", it can mean anything from their immediate family of spouse and children, to whoever is living with them (which could include a few other relatives or even people not related at all) to every person they are even close to kind of related to.  Cousins here, for example, are only cousins if they are your mother's brother's children or your father's sister's children.  Your mother's sister's children and your father's brother's children are called your brothers and sisters.  So, if you only desire what we think of as the immediate family to show up, you have to be pretty specific in your invitation.  And even then, they might have 15 kids or can't possible come without their grandmother who is visiting.  Which is fine, the more the merrier, especially if it's an outdoor party.

So, we invited four of our friends' families to come and ended up with, I think, 18 people.  Some didn't even bring their whole families.  If they had, the number would have gone up to 26.  We ordered Tanzanian food from a local cafe and had a picnic on our porch.

Obama even visited us for the afternoon. 

Seriously, this kid's name is Obama.  He's a funny one, too.  Loves to put on other people's shoes (especially high heels) that are too big for him and walk around.  

This is Baylor with Margaret.  Baylor loves Margaret.  

And here we all are for a nice end of the day picture, with the exception of those of us taking pictures.

It was a fun day.  The kids played soccer and drank cokes and the adults learned about making sandbag homes while taking turns holding Baylor.  Everyone ate a lot, which I think is the true measure of enjoyment as a visitor here in Tanzania.