Walking in a Sandy Wonderland

Christmas. Abroad. In. Africa.

This is strange. Not horrible. Not amazing. Way better than I thought it would be, but strange.

I'll recount my Christmas tales from this glorious sand-filled wonderland.

I'll start with Christmas presents. We decided to do Secret Santa for Christmas, which was a lot of fun. I had Hannah, so I thought, hm, what's better than a home-made African stocking with her name embroidered on it? So I take my fabric and go to the tailor. Now, since we're all good Christmas celebrating people, we could all probably make a stocking with our eyes closed, right? NOT the case in Africa. After explaining it to him, he tried to charge me $20 to sew up two pieces of fabric. Cue in story of Derek Zuidema making me a stocking a few years back. Got him down to ten dollars (sorry to tell you the price if you read this Hannah!) with names embroidered on the top. I was thinking, man, this is going to be amazing. I head over to the tailor's on the 23rd, when we were going to do Christmas and they weren't done. They were cut out, but due to a power outage (thanks Karim Wade!) the sewing was not possible. Now, honestly, I could have saved them at that moment, seeing how horribly ugly they were, but I didn't. I thought it was too funny. So I left it.

That night, we had Christmas with the Toubabs. Hannah, Andrew, Joleen, Karolina (Joleen's friend who is here for the month) and I celebrated in only the most traditional ways. Christmas tree cut from a magazine, fire place made from French bread (the logs) and a red t-shirt (with actual candles on the side), Sacred Mother Christmas (a scantily clad, large breasted African woman, very sacred) cut from a newspaper) and presents wrapped in bags, newspaper and creepy Santa Claus wrapping paper (I had to buy it! It was only 300cfa!).

Now that decorations were beautiful, it was time for the traditional Christmas food and drink: extremely salty tuna salad sandwiches and cans of soda from the convenient store outside my house. We sat outside for a bit, and enjoyed the freezing weather (which as a result of that, I am now sick. :( which was probably also only 75 degrees). After that, we came inside and opened presents. Hannah got me a pretty black necklace made out of something semi-precious, some tea, a bracelet, a wallet and a bunch of coupons for things, and other things, I'm sure. I got a sweet book from Joleen; the children's stories by Senghor which are incredibly famous. It's something that will last a long time!

After presents, Andrew started making paper hats, which has sparked a new tradition (I guess we need to see next year if it continues...!). I'll put up our pictures. By the end, we were laughing so hard we were crying. It was incredible. And then we decided to go find a restaurant (the Copacabana) to have a drink, but we couldn't find it. I think the Senegalese thought we were crazy walking around in our paper "Christmas" hats.

The 24th. Christmas Eve.

I went out to Pikine to hang out with Stevens for the day. We came back into town to make dessert for a dinner party we were going to with Hannah. While at Casino (the supermarket) we found a log cake, and decided that that would be better than baking quickly, so we bought log cake and a ice cream roll (I was inspired by Christmas at Aunt Marcia's!!) instead. We met at the Baobab Center and walked to the apartment where dinner was served. It was an amazing evening with people we did not know, but came together as a small family and shared a great time. We read Luke 2 and ate ham. It doesn't get much better than that! ;) And, don't worry, there were traditional Christmas fireworks being lit off in the street as well.

The 25th. Christmas Day.

I woke up and did homework. Oh boy. While y'all were sleeping and then opening presents, I was reading about the national literature of Africa. Wooooooooooo. I had to go back to the tailor to pick up a dress that was supposed to be done four days ago. He told me to come back tomorrow. I told him I was not going to be here. So I have to go back in a few to pick it up. This will make SIX trips to the tailor in the last few days. I'm annoyed. But my dress will be done. I hope. Yesterday felt like Christmas, today does not. Everyone is working, stores are open, it's ridiculously hot, I'm sweating (not because I'm wearing a wool Christmas sweater), I didn't go to church because mass in French just isn't anything and I don't know where Protestant churches exist, the food smells like fish (not good...!)... it's just strange. I'll let you know about tonight. There's a group of nine of us going to the Jardin Thailandes (derishous, to quote Hannah). It should be festive and fun. I'm just wishing I was at church or sipping mimosas with the Brown family ;).

Love you all and miss you.
Have a blessed Christmas and don't take your time with family forgranted...

Kate



Karolina's gift of a pineapple. Which she loves, most obviously
Christmas set up in the dark. It's prettier in the dark. :)
Hannah showing off her traditional tuna salad sandwich in front of the fireplace. Please note that she has an entire HALF LOAF of french bread!
Joleen in her traditional paper hat. Please note she is crying from laughter. But it's beautiful, right?
Andrew, Hannah and I in our hats... Hannah's and my hat they have three corners... three corners have our hats!


Hannah and her stocking. Please note the three year old's handwriting on it.One of my fantastic coupons. Spray deodorant!

Tomorrow I'm off to The Gambia with Hannah and Stevens. Our other friend who was going to go with us is no long er going because his mother is extremely ill. Please throw up a prayer for her. Thanks guys.

Love you and see you when I'm in SL again!