Hatastic

The Royal Ascot Goat races. A charity event that takes place in Kampala every year. Except for last year. When we heard they were making a comeback in 2010, there was only one thing to do. Buy some floofy (yes, floofy) decor and throw a hat-making party.

I wasn't actually there for the hat-making party (quick Tanzania trip for workplanning and house-hunting), but the girls went to town on their own and took care of me, too. Throw a big silver bow on a bright pink hat and voila - hatastic. I woke up at the ridiculous hour of 2:30am on Saturday morning (September 18th) to get on a 5:30am flight out of Dar es Salaam for the sole purpose of making it back in time for East Africa's premier social occasion. At least according to the unbiased goat races website.

While Tulips on Top Boess really did take home Best Dressed Woman, the rest of us pretended to be winners by posing with Kampala Kids Club trophies of assorted shapes and sizes. We may or may not have had to donate some money to the cause in order to take this photo:

When we weren't taking pictures of ourselves or strutting our stuff in front of the judges, we were sipping strawberried Champagne or looking on anxiously as the Kampala Aeroclub attempted Uganda's first ever aerobatic display. The collective sigh of relief was audible when the show came to a conclusion with performing aircraft and pilot still in one piece.

Apparently there were goats there, too.