Today I went with Queen, her son Charlie (also called Junior) and Kaita to a kid's bike race across town. I picked them up at FHS, loaded up their bikes, and headed for the big event.

For a small registration fee of N$20 (less than $3US) each kid received a bag filled with goodies... 2 water bottles, toothpaste, sweets, biltong (beef jerky as we'd call it back home), a t-shirt for the race, even a bag of pasta and some other random things. They had a couple jumping castles set up and that's where we killed most the time before the race.

The announcement was made for the start of the race and we rushed to starting line. We had figured I could run with Kaita since he's a bit small. NOT the best idea in hindsight! The Namibian sun was quite harsh today and I wasn't completely in shape for his unexpected high speed! I ran about halfway, but he was so far ahead it was pretty pointless. So I cut across and barely saw him reach the finish line. He was adorable and carefully had one arm raised in victory as he came down the hill. I so wish I could have been ready with my camera, but I had just barely made it and was still catching my breath! It's an image that I trust I will never forget. He was just precious. No finish line action shot of Junior either since I missed him crossing completely! He was 4th! And there were a ton of kids. Queen said the 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place winners were all quite older than Junior, only 7. So we are really proud of him. Proud of them both!

I did manage to get a few good pictures before the race and a couple after. I also took some video of them playing in the jumping castle and a brief post-race interview. I don't know what all Kaita was trying to tell me but he's pretty stinkin' cute! And the "Kaita see, Kaita do" part on the jumping castle video is pretty hilarious. Junior does a flip onto the thing so Kaita thinks he'll try it as well. Didn't happen. Lol.

The goodie bag