Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! Hope you all had a fun holiday season. Mine was filled with Christmas spirit and carols, but lacking in snow. So I imagine it was kind of like what the holidays in Florida would be like?
Christmas traveling
I decided, kind of last minute, to take a bus and visit 2 friends in F for Christmas Eve. And by bus I actually mean “vehicle that is slightly bigger than a minivan, overcrowded, with bicycles, luggage and motos strapped onto the roof.” Using the transport here is always quite the experience. Anyway, I left my site at about 7:30 am and reached F at just before 11:30 am, a journey of a dust-filled 4 hours. At least I was able to nap a bit, since the drive wasn't too rough and was mostly on paved roads.
After getting to F, I met up with LC and dropped off my stuff at his house, which is much bigger and cleaner than mine. Then we headed to lunch with SW and a few Secondary Education Volunteers who were in town. I was told that the restaurant had amazing chicken, so I splurged and got an entire roasted chicken for 2000 CFA (about $4). Expensive! But also very tasty.
The Christmas Eve celebration was to be at another volunteer's house. He's a teacher at a high school, and actually lives on the school compound in a very nice house. With a toilet and running water even! He had decorated his house with some Christmas lights, a stocking, and even a small tree, so it was quite holiday-seasonesque. And of course, there was some Christmas music playing in the background. We started the evening off with tea, poured Burkina style with lots of sugar and foam at the top. Snacks included various American goodies that the PCV was nice enough to share from his care packages. Then was the appetizer of a Mediterranean-type of tuna salad, prepared by SW. We decided that that course should be followed by drinks, so a few people went off to buy some. The plan for dinner had been to make tacos with the 3 pounds of shredded, vacuum sealed beef sent from the US that the hosting PCV had. But we were so full from all the snacks and everything that we decided to leave that for the next day.
So, on Christmas morning, we all gathered back at JG's house for Christmas brunch! There were homemade tortillas, salsa, veggies, and shredded beef, which tasted quite good considering it had traversed 3 continents (made in Brazil, sold in the US, sent to Burkina Faso). My bus back to site was scheduled to leave at 11:45 am, so I had to quickly eat and bike the 20 minutes or so to the station. Overall, it was a pretty nice celebration of Christmas!
La nouvelle annee
And then a week later, it was New Year's! I decided to stay at my site to take part in the Burkinabe festivities. On New Year's Eve, people worked for the first half of the day, and then started preparing for the fete (party/celebration) in the afternoon. I spent some time walking around town, greeting people and wishing them “bonne fete.” One of my friends invited me to a New Year's party at the restaurant/bar her husband owns (I think that's her connection to the place), Le Soir au Village, or “Night in the Village.” I met her at her small grocery store next to the restaurant, and actually just ended up hanging out there for a couple hours, since she kept her store open until about 10 pm. Then we finally went into the restaurant. A description of the scene: people drinking and eating at tables around the restaurant, loud music and a DJ, a dance floor with no one dancing, and quite a few children, including babies. That last aspect surprised me a bit, but I guess it's perfectly normal for children to be out at a bar/restaurant/club celebrating with adults here. In fact, little kids were the first ones on the dance floor. And then the adults joined in.
There was no countdown or giant ball over a skyscraper (well, there are no skyscrapers here), but at midnight, the DJ paused the music to announce that it was 2011! The proper way to wish people a happy new year here is to kiss them on the cheek, alternating left and right, 4 times, though actually without the kissing part, so it's more like tapping your cheek to their cheek. And I think each “kiss” represents a wish the person has for you for the new year: prosperity, and 3 more that I don't remember. The party then continued, I assume into the early morning, but I was pretty tired so I left at around 1 am.
The next day, the festivities continued. On New Year's Day, you generally go around to wish friends and family a happy new year, sit for a while and spend time chatting and relaxing. And also eating. I stopped by the homes of 4 friends, and was fed lots of food and drink at each. Then when I returned back home, my neighbor had prepared food for me too. It was basically non-stop eating from noon until 5 pm. I think I probably gained about 5 pounds on January 1st. But hopefully that'll be offset by all the walking I do each day.
No comments:
Post a Comment