Tender Togolese Christmas...

Merry Belated Christmas Everybody! I tried to post something before, but really for most of you it's only been 7 hours since Christmas ended. I spent my Christmas in Vogan with 9 other volunteers and 3 friends of Ashley (volunteer who lives in Notse and most awesome human ever) visiting for the holiday. 13 of us total. Lucky little number 13. We ate a big meal of bean loaf (for the vegetarians), chicken (killed right outside the window where I was sleeping the morning of Christmas Eve...somehow I slept through it all), cucumber and tomato salad, whole wheat bread (made by me and my fabo Dutch Oven), mashed taters (garlicee goodness), garlic cream sauce, and for dessert-apple pie and cookies. We ate this meal Christmas Eve, so for Christmas Day we ate a big breakfast of pancakes, hashed browns and scrambled eggs with Swiss cheese. We then opened our Secret Santa gifts. I got some glorious gifts. A very small stretch black tank top with a Titanic film poster awkwardly placed on the front (it doesn't really fit over my belly), a Twix bar, a Snickers bar, and a personally colored My Little Pony picture. I left in a rush for Vogan (by way of Lome), so I forgot several things: butter (lesson learned, never make a pie with margarine, I made 2 apple pies, one with butter, one with margarine and there was a large diff), underwear (lesson learned, um...I like to wear underwear) and my camera (no memory-maker). My Christmas was surreal this year. Being that I was hot and had what I think are allergies due to Harmattan (dust storm coming from the north, desert), it was not quite the Christmas' of yore. Also, Christmas Eve night starting at dinner time and ending around 2 a.m. there was a church revival happening right across the street from us with singing and drums so loud that we could not hear ourselves talking at the table. It actually sounded like they were going insane and about to enter into an orgy, but alas, it was just the "spirit" for the lord. The singing was off-key and it seemed as though they were just allowing people off the street to belt out a tune on the mic that didn't necessarily need to correspond with the drum beat or rhythm in general. Ear plugs would have only turned the volume down to a 10 (b/c 11 is even higher). And the only Christmas music we had to listen to was by Amy Grant. I did find a MP3 CD of Celine Dion (has 104 songs, well 103 b/c they must have miscounted somewhere) at the local boutique, no Christmas music but it did have that song that goes like this (dedicated to her son, Renee!):

"...hush now, I see the light in the sky, oh, it's almost blinding me. I can't believe I've been touched by an angel with luh woo wah ooh uhv. Let the rain come down and wash away my tears..."

Love it. It also has her famous song, "Je t'aime! Je t'aime....something sung in French. Je t'aime..." Intense.

Alexia, do you think you can cover some Celine with any one of your 4 bands? I might be able to sell the CD's here and make some cash. A moto driver told me his aunt lives near me in the states. Whenk I asked him where, he told me it was the same place as where Celine Dion is from...No m'am. Celine Dion and I do not and will never share location. Spreading cultural exchange and good cheer everywhere.

I saw my first funeral this past weekend in my village. 4 day event. Loud speakers. Music. Dancing. The night before the burial, they stayed up and sang and danced all night. That was an ear plug night and I slept like a little baby. But, then the next morning after the burial, the people in my village had a drum circle and danced. I have video and pictures from that and I will post it next time I can. It was really beautiful and almost like a wedding because it was treated more like a fete. A celebration of life, if you will. And my village doubled in size because family and friends from Lome and even Ghana came in and stayed during the whole event (actually next door to me). When I go back I will hopefully have my front porch back and can burn some trash (yeyas!) and wash some clothes. Happy New Year everybody! I'm still not sure what I will be doing for that, but I'm sure it will be a story. Can someone please e-mail me a plot summary of the most current events occurring on General Hospital (and by someone, I mean, Maren...). Also, Lee thank you thank you again for taking my cats. Please send me an e-mail or something with your address, so I can write you a letter and also get an update on the critters. Miss you all so much! It hurts.