Willie's Birthday Party

Nancy here, with an inaugural blog.  I am joining the 21st century!


For his birthday, other than asking for an out-of-the-question 3-foot long plastic fire truck that we saw at Game City (Botswana version of a Target Store) a few weeks ago, Willie's wish was for a treasure hunt in the back yard.  He envisioned something involving lots of candy.  We humored him.

The birthday crowd

We invited Willie's buddies and their families for lunch, swimming, and treasure hunting.  Preparations for the party was David's full-time job last week.  We kept an evolving list of items to buy, and David made numerous trips to malls and stores to pick up items from the ever-changing list.  The apartment came equipped with minimal kitchen items, so we needed to get food that was easy to prepare.  It took the offerings of about 5 different stores to find all the items on the list, as one market may carry cheese but not cold cuts, for example.  Another tricky item was plates and cups.  In a testament that Botswana is not quite as much of a "throw away" society as the US, David found that paper plates are sold only in packs of six, and priced at over $3 per pack.  This meant several additional trips to other stores to find cheap reusable plastic plates and cups.  By the end of the week, we were ready for the party!


We began the morning by biking and walking to our nearest shopping complex, to pick up a few last items and the birthday cakes.

Mitchell and Elliot en route to Choppies market

The bread slicer at Choppies

Note that this convention took me over 2 weeks in Botswana to discover.  You buy your loaf first, then take it to the slicer by the front door.  It turns out that Batswana, too, can claim "it's the best thing since sliced bread".

Saturday seemed to be our hottest day yet in Botswana.  We had abut 13 children and 14 adults arrive for the party.  Our living room started to feel quite small and warm.  We survived by spreading a couple of blankets in the shade and spending quite a bit of time in the pool.  After lunch, the treasure hunt started.  We had prepared little tin foil packets of candy in the morning, and the boys did a great job hiding these and other treasure items amidst the plants and trees outside.

Find the treasure!

After lunch, the kids scattered for the treasure hunt.  They had a great time, with older kids helping younger kids to find the items.  We discovered that gummy bears did not survive baking in tin foil in the Gaborone sunshine; some of the candy packets were a sticky mess!

Elliot and Mitchell with friend Tichoana ("We shall see" in Shona) from Elliot's Standard 5 class at Thornhill. Tich spent the night after the party and joined us for tennis on Sunday morning. He is a lovely boy and we hope his nice manners rub off on our boys.

Swimming at the party

Treasure hunt begins

Ashley with a candy packet

Yu looking for treasures

Yu finding treasures

Baby Beatrix held by Ami-chan

Baby Beatrix is the reason we are in Botswana.  Her mom Jessica is on week 7 of maternity leave and will return to work before I leave at the end of November.

Birthday cakes catered by a nearby cafe

The "Pula" cake is the colors of the Botswana flag.  Pula means "let it rain!" and is both an expression of celebration and the name for Botswana's currency.