What Just Happened? (This is no April Fool's)

 The day after Nawroz, the picnics continued.

When we visited this country last year, we had the chance to eat in a home of a national named "B."

When our friends were invited to a Nawroz picnic with "B's" family, he invited us along, too.

We were ready to just wear "nice" clothes to the picnic, when one of our neighbors said she had national clothing we could all (except Doug) borrow.

I'll let Keira demonstrate what we wore.

First, the under-clothing.

 

 Next, you put a long, one-piece dress on with a belt and a small vest.  The sleeves hang to the ground, so we tied Keira's in a knot, and then, like all the other people here, we tied her sleeves behind her as well.

 

 And, I'm pretty sure everyone wear's Anna socks from the movie "Frozen."

 And then comes the crown.

In case you were wondering, the "theme" of her outfit is in honor of the soldiers that fight so valiantly for this country.  Everywhere we went, people LOVED her outfit and her.  She got her cheeks pinched a LOT on this day.

 Next, Caleb came downstairs after getting help from a friend who helped him put all the pieces together.

Here we all are.

 Usually picnics last all day, into the night, but we had to be back to the city by 6; therefore, we had to time ourselves going out so we would know when we would have to leave.

We had no idea where we were going.

We had a few nationals in the car with us, so we learned some language on the way out when they weren't singing and dancing.

Doug was in charge of the radio, and through an interpreter they told him, "Keep changing radio stations until you see our shoulders moving."

The view out my window kept changing.

Fifteen minutes outside of the city, I saw new apartments under construction.

After 30 minutes, pastures of green.

Everywhere we looked long the way, we could see other picnics taking place in the hillside.

After 55 minutes, we saw a village.

More picnics.

After an hour and 15 minutes, we pulled onto a dirt road, and drove along this river.  After 5 minutes we stopped.  Everyone said we were "here."

 We got out.  "B" fixed Caleb's waist tie, and then everyone decided we needed to keep driving.

Everyone got back in the cars (there were about 6 cars in our caravan with about 35 people).

 We finally stopped at 10:40, and everyone started doing "what they do."

 Which included setting up the cooking, eating, and visiting area.

 Feeding babies.

Braiding flowers to wear in the hair.



Taking a walk.
 
 

Fixing a flat tire.

 
Getting a fire started.

 
Lounging.

 
Washing vegetables in the river...The same river in which I saw them throw a dirty diaper.  Upriver, of course ;)

  
Cutting potatoes.

 

Cutting the vegetables washed in the river.

And dancing.  Always dancing.

 

 (You can see their sleeves tied in the back on these videos.)

Video 1 - just the beginning

Video 2 - I repeat.  This is just the beginning. 

 The picnic is just getting started, but I think I've given you enough to chew on today :)