Halloween 2015

A great deal of preparation went into Kavita's first Halloween party hosted by her best friend Kavin and his parents. 

Haresh came up with the brilliant idea to dress her up as a Rubik's Cube. Kavita was however quite scared of being boxed up and hardly wore her costume for a couple of minutes. 

You can see a video of Haresh pinning the skeleton  here. 

Good evening

Kavita and I had a good evening walk around Mamba Point. Kavita walked all the way from Randall Street, up UN Drive, past the old US Embassy, past the EU and up to the Masonic Lodge. We do this week at least three times a week and Kavita has made a few friends now.

Kavita also does get distracted so it can be a little nerve racking trying to keep some kind of a pace. 

We met some bored boys who were amusing themselves throwing rocks at a boy riding a small bicycle on the street. 

One of the sensible things I have noticed about Kavita is that she politely answers people's 'hello's' and 'how are you's' but gets very annoyed if folks want to touch her. Sometimes she doesn't mind but at other times, she doesn't like it. When she was a baby, I was amused at how freely doting women would like to hold Kavita but as she is growing bigger, she is exerting herself and doesn't always like being touched. I think this is something I need to start actively encouraging her to do. Last week, these kids kept wanting to touch her and tease her, but she got very irritated and yelled back at them. I had to tell the kids to just say hello and not touch her. 

We didn't work today so we left at 5 PM from the house - earlier than the usual 6 or 6:30 PM - and were able to enjoy the evening sunshine. 

There is a homeless lady around the corner before one starts walking up the hill to the Masonic Lodge.  By that time I get to that corner, it is usually dark and, I can only see her silhouette, sitting on the footpath, close to her plastic bags. Today it was still light out and I could she was cooking snails. Her skirt was torn from the side and one could see her underwear. She was standing and leaning over her makeshift stove on the foot path. 

We proceeded and arrived at the Masonic Lodge a few minutes later and, sat on the foot path to eat some sweet oranges and catch a breath. There were lots of other folks training, running up and down the hill, crunching dozens of push ups and some other complicated maneuvers. 

Kavita always gets inspired and tries to copy the sit ups and push ups . 

Today, the manager of Lila Brown was training a couple of boys and came over to say hi. It's always good to bump into friends and acquaintances. In fact a couple of weeks ago, an Australian journalist, also a friend, came over to say hi and we ended up chatting for a good half hour. Kavita had dozed off making it easy for me to plunge into one of my rants. 

We finished our exercises and started the downward descent, me pushing the stroller and Kavita running down the grass. Today, she didn't obligingly stop at the end of the hill and kept running. I started yelling hysterically after her but she kept running on the footpath. Thankfully, a fellow stopped her and, I caught up with her, smacked her bum and scolded her. 

We continued down to Benson Street where I quickly popped into Saksouk Supermarket to pick up some yoghurt and olive oil.  There are 4 supermarkets in that part of Benson Street but I am rather fond of sticking to Saksouk. 

Just before I got home (and by this time, Kavita was in her stroller and asleep), the DVD sellers near Stop and Shop asked me to stop and go through some new DVDs. I've stopped buying those DVDs since a long time because the quality is never good and DSTV has usually a good selection of entertainment. Today I decided to stop. My DVD seller friend explained all the new titles he had and it was endearing to see him do that. I decided to buy Rosewater. I didn't have the $ 5 but he told me I could bring it on Monday. 

When friends bring you gifts

We put together a last minute dinner party in honour of our Italian Robertsport-born friend's return to Liberia. In fact, Luca came with us to Exclusive Supermarket on Center Street to buy the ingredients for a chicken biryani, came home with us to baby sit Kavita while we prepared dinner. 

I dared Haresh to try out a new biryani recipe given how soggy mine was. Kudos to him. He followed the recipe to the letter and made a perfect delectable biryani. The house smelled of saffron and sweet cashews. 

To top everything off, our friend Luca brought us some special gifts, including vintage Liberia stamps and extra virgin oil. 

Our friend Rukshan brought a bright colored dragon from Sri Lanka for Kavita. Looks exactly like the Game of Thrones dragon. ;-)