Party Crashers

No picture for this one, so I hope that my description will paint a picture for you. Last Friday night the five of us (Peter, Meredith, Marianne, Fred, and I) decided we needed to go out to dinner. It is not as easy a concept as it sounds. First of all, once it's dark the police come out looking for their beer money. Second, there are no street lights and it's very difficult to see all the pedestrians that cross directly in front of the car. Anyhoo, we all piled into Marianne's car for an evening adventure. We went down the main Bastos Road and turned down a side street to park and find the gate, but couldn't. Marianne did a U-ey and we parked on the main road. Now, when I say park, it is not how you imagine. Parking consists of pulling one tire up onto the pot-holed sidewalk so most of the car is out of the street. Luckily Marianne was able to pull her whole car up onto the sidewalk without taking out any banana or peanut stands. We all got out of the car and entered a gate. We were greeted by a man with an umbrella, which is customary during the rainy season. I was the first one in so I greeted this lovely African woman with, "Bon Souir", thinking I was all that. There were about 10 people standing around on this veranda having drinks. They all looked at me quizzically, so I said, "La Salsa?"-the name of the restaurant we were trying to get to. Suddenly, a burst of laughter from the crowd. The nice African lady went on to explain, in pretty good English, that this was a party at a house, not a restaurant. We had crashed a private party!!!! We profusely appologized and quickly fled. As we passed through the gate it began to rain, Africa style. As we were running down the side street to find La Salsa we quickly became drenched as we were pounding on all the gates, to no avail. At this point Marianne smarted up and ran back to the car. Fred ran down the road, arms flailing, down the hill in the wrong direction.
Eventually, we all got into the car and went to this restaurant that we had been to before, Il Pasticio. We got in ok, squishy shoes and dripping clothes, to a nice table. Now the only saving grace for this restaurant is that it has really good French bread. The bread goes soft/stale within hours here because of the humidity. We decided to make the best of it and order. Unfortunately, our waiter decided that what we wanted to order was not right and argued with us about it in French. In the end, Fred's meat was gross, Meredith and I ordered the same thing but instead of cheese raviolis in a cheese sauce, she got red sauce with raviolis that were filled with tuna fish. Gross.
Just when we thought it couldn't get worse, for once, it didn't. During the meal our landlord had come into the restaurant. He let the rude waiter know he was picking up our tab! So in the end we at least didn't have to pay for the awful meal.
I am telling you this story because that is what our everyday life is--ups and downs. Nothing is easy here even though we do live a priveledged life. Just when we think things can't get worse, they usually do for a bit and then suddenly something really great happens. Good news is I am handling all this with mostly laughter and really doing ok with all of the crazy things each and everyday!!