Our African Adventure: Birthday Weekend-The Market & Esplanada

This weekend the boys were celebrating my birthday a little early since we can not really do anything during the week at night. On a side note...I never in my life thought I would ever spend a birthday in Africa....but I have to say it was probably one of the best birthday's I have ever had.

It started last night when the boys made me my favorite birthday cake, with one substitute ingredient chocolate glaze instead of chocolate pudding. When I was about 10 years old probably I spent the night at my cousin Abby's house and me and her made a vanilla cake and poked holes in it and then made chocolate pudding and poured over the cake. Ever since then it is one of my favorites...Thanks Abby!! A couple of weeks ago Kenny sent a picture of chocolate pudding to a friend of his in Germany that was coming to Angola and asked him if they had that and he said yes. Come to find out they didn't but he brought some chocolate glaze and it turned out wonderful.

This morning they took me to the market that I have been wanting to go to. It took about an hour to get there and of course we seen lots of interesting things.

This was a ladies stand and she was selling sugar pecans...

We seen these kids play on this old car.

I am not sure what these ladies were doing or what was in the big sacks...our driver said maybe trash but it looked like clothes or something. I took the picture because at the very top in the middle is a big beach that you can ride a boat across and go to.

See this guys pet. He walked by our car and scared me to death. It was a rat on his shoulder and he was feeding it cheese. :-)

This was a stand on the side of the road...it was very nice and big. Yes the big green melons are watermelon so if anyone talks to Paul tell him they have watermelon in Africa but nothing like his black diamonds.

Under the red and blue umbrella that is dry fish that they sell and people eat...almost like it is dehydrated. YUKK!!

They also sell whole fish. Kenny asked Batista if people still buy it after it sets out all day and he said yes...yes. Double YUKK!!

I have mentioned in the past that we see this ever where we go and so I had to show you I was serious. There were actually two guys and two boys....women do it too. It is a very long line of cars going to Benefita(The Market) and so they get out of the taxi's and go to the side of the road if they need a bathroom break. The only difference in the states is we open all the doors to hide a little.

This is just a construction sign but I had to take a picture because the first time Kenny and I seen it we thought it was a real guy.

Here is The Market. Under the metal roof is tons of people that want to be your friend. As you walk through everyone says Amigo...Amigo. They were calling Kenny "Big Chefe" which means Big Boss. I am pretty sure we were the only white people in there so it wasn't hard to pick us out of the crowd. I was nervous to go but Batista insured me it was safe and everyone was very friendly and nice. If they wanted to give you a price of something they pulled out their cell phones and put a dollar amount on it.

They had tons and tons of pictures. Some were very good. I will get more pictures next time. We will go again because there are lots of stuff I want. :-) Batista said next time I need to bring more money and a trailer. :-)

I took this picture just because I couldn't believe that lady could carry that much on her head.

Chicken you see these everywhere except in the meat market. :-)

Here is some wicker furniture for sale. It was very very pretty and I would love to have some of it but I am sure it is very very expensive too. We didn't stop and get a price.

This is a tree that grows in Africa and is called a Baobab. They get very very big. They sold carved ones at the market and they were very beautiful. Next time I will get one of them.

This is an elephants tail that you can buy. The guy said they use the hair to make bracelets and necklaces.

Barbara these pictures are for you. The giraffes range from $300 to $3,000. If you want a bigger one you have to wait 2 years until our shipment is sent back home because I think I might have to buy an extra airplane seat for the big one. :-)

The tables in the picture to the right were very cool. The tops come off and the bottom part folds up into like one big stick. Everything here is hand carved and you can see the guys behind the tables and they are carving some guys that hang on the wall.

Here are some turtle shells...not sure what you do with those and some ladies weaving baskets.

O Pensadora "The Thinker"

It is the most famous piece of Angolan art. It represents a strong sense of wisdom and knowledge and is looked at with great respect by all here.

Once we got home we had lunch and skipped with the Finley's and my parents in Dallas for Maddie's Birthday. We sang Happy Birthday to her and then they surprised me by singing Happy Birthday. Batista was here waiting on us to go to dinner and setting up his TV, table and chairs and refrigerator we got him out back and so I got him on Skype and let him meet our family and friends. He just smiled big and said Hi. He is very nice and we are lucky to have him.

Around 4:30 we headed to the ilha, island, to go eat dinner at Esplanada. We tried to get Batista to go and eat with us but he wouldn't so we just gave him some money and he went and ate at a fish place while we ate. He said next time he will go with us. I pulled the for my birthday please and he still wouldn't. :-) Esplanada is a steak house and it was very good. They have a buffet that you can get sides off of....not to many good ones...and then they bring around different types of steak on a big metal stick. You have a card on your table that one side says sim (yes) and the other side says nao (no) and if it is on yes then they keep bringing steak.