Wonderful Christmastime

My christmas family

Christmas has come and gone, and I can happily say I had the most Christmassy Christmas possible without family, snow, and 008 days of 007. Five wonderful stagemates came to town and rented the “MTV house” on the beach, which meant I could spend x-mas at site, see my family, but also do more American things. I met Garrison and Daisy in Mbour, the nearest city to me, so we could stock up on all the makings for a perfect holiday. They came on the heels of a visit from another PCV and his american friends, so the group of us made the ever-so-important decision to visit Liquors de Waring. This place is wonderful and anyone visiting me is definitely going to be brought here. The owner, who speaks fluent English, and isn’t too harsh on the eyes, makes liquors out of local produce. They are to die for!! So after a round of tasting and buying a few bottles for a festive holiday, we went on to the local Toubab market and ran around like kids.
This place, called Avalanche,  is great. You can get a lot of the weirder western things that you wouldn’t always think of till you NEED them.. like brie…ok so not a necessity, but it's oh so delicious. Besides buying a few of the "finer things in life", Garrison and I also took great pleasure in pursuing the toy section (think the toy section of a dollar store).  I even found an oversized Barbie knock-off. It wasn’t quite a my size Barbie, but I decided that was the toy I would have wanted if I had remembered to write a letter to Santa. What can I say, postage is expensive.

Garrison and Daisy spent the night at my place as we waited anxiously for the others to arrive. It was quite nice having actual friends meet my family. Uptil now it has only been my ancienne and other PCVs they already know. Having new people meet my family, especially Sophie and my mom, gives me such a sense of pride and thankfulness. I already knew I liked my family a lot, but seeing them through another person’s eyes really solidified how grateful I feel for them. Sophie cooked us a wonderful meal, which they made us eat my room. This sounds weird, and makes me feel as such, but it is a sign of respect. Kind of like being given the most comfortable chair to sit on. Anyways, my family is great, especially Sophie and my mom.

However, I’m sure you’d rather hear about x-mas.....
 We got into the house the morning of the 24th, and daisy started on a delicious Mexican meal right away. We had so much food that night, that we ate leftovers for lunch for the next two days. Garrison and I decorated the tallest object in the room, a giraffe sculpture. He had bought these silly singing lights and daisy had a few ornaments from the States..... Side note on the lights, they make this horrible high pitch noise that is supposed to be a song and makes an even more pathetic dying noise when you unplug them.... Anyways, after April, Clint and Amy arrived we broke open some bissap waring, ate Mexican food, watched love actually and then missed midnight mass. This last part was funny because we got dressed, went to the church (I was even kind of excited) and arrived to find it completely closed. I though maybe it just looked dead because the power was out, but we came to discover midnight mass was actually at 10. How stupid.

Back at the house, Garrison, who I would say was my partner in super Christmassy things, demanded we put out food for Santa. Loving this idea, I wrote a letter and then we filled and hung up make-shift stockings. The next morning I woke early to put my strata in the oven, only to discover Santa had in fact visited us. After a great breakfast and beautiful mass, we had cinnamon rolls and opened presents. It wasn't as Christmassy as it would have been with my family, specially my dad, but it was still great fun. We all managed to keep some silly traditions going, like cinnamon rolls and I was even lucky enough to skype my family. I also gave presents to my Senegalese family, i.e. lotion (for my mom and sister), jolly ranchers, and a puzzle for the kids. I haven’t seen the puzzle since, I explained it, but have a sneaking suspicion my family doesn’t quite know what to do with it. That is another bridge to cross.
PS read Garrison's Blog post...he gives a much more creative description of our christmas. http://garrisonharward.blogspot.com/2010/12/christmas-in-popenguine.html?spref=fb