2 Weeks in Africa: Color Run with Everyone in Tunis

I tried my best to sleep during the flights from Addis back to Tunis.  As we were approaching Tunis, however, I woke up and looked out the window, fascinated by my view.  I saw a small island, which I later figured out from Google Maps was Pantelleria.  

Tunisia has the most beautiful coastlines.  I also saw plenty of cargo ships, which was fascinating, but the pictures of them were not, so I'll spare you those.

Back in Tunis, I spent the day with the Real McCoys, loving on those sweet kiddos.

While reading Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, I realized just how naive (and not so bright) Snow White was.  Beautiful, yes.  On top of things, not so much.

The next day, we were signed up to participate in the "Happy Run 2," which was a color run (a 5k race where colored powder is thrown at you to make everyone into one happy rainbow).  Seeing as I'd had so much fun at the Electrodash a few weeks earlier, and a sweet six year old JuleBug who loves color, it seemed like a fun idea.  We'd take the kids and walk it with the strollers.

The thing was, the entire population of Tunis showed up AND there was little to no organization.  We never found the start line (or the finish one, for that matter).  There were just people everywhere.

We found the color, though!  Since that's the most fun part, and what we'd promised to JuleBug, we had a great time with the powders.

We learned later that they'd never even closed the roads, and so there were cars driving through the some 60,000+ people trying to participate in the race.  The runners/walkers had to just find space on roads and "sidewalks" to put their feet.  Kinda glad we didn't try to get the strollers through that!

What was fun (beyond throwing colored powder everywhere), was just watching the Tunisians have such a blast.  They really got into the color.

There were so many people!!!  We guessed anywhere upwards of 60,000, because we saw registered racers with numbers up around 30,000...and there were at least 2-3 people without numbers as there were with.

All in all, it was a really fun morning and I'm so glad I went.  One last opportunity to hang out with friends.

I realized I hadn't gotten a photo with Mr And Mrs Real McCoy yet, and he had already left on a business trip.  Oops.  This one would have to suffice.  I'm so thankful for these sweet friends who have become like family to me.

One of my favorite things about Tunis in the spring is all the bougainvillea that is everywhere.  They don't really trim back the bushes, and so they're just huge!  I'd wished I'd had time to walk around and take a bunch of pictures of them, but just like that, the two weeks in Africa was over.

It was a great vacation and I was so happy to have spent so much time with friends.  I got to rest, do some tourism, catch up with people, meet new bosses, see new places, and meet my Compassion child.  I came back to France ready to begin the process of closing things down and moving on to the next chapter in my life.  It was the right vacation at just the right time.  So thankful for that!