Happy New Years!

Imagine Halloween, Christmas, and New Years (African style, of course) all rolled into one and you might have something close to what we just experienced here. Just before the actual New Year there is a certain holiday here that our people celebrate that is supposed to be a celebration of the New Year (by the lunar calendar maybe?). For two to three days everyone takes off from their normal work (other than to cook enormous amounts of food, of course), gets dressed up in their new fancy clothes and gets their hair all braided (the girls, not the boys) and spends hours of the day just walking around visiting friends and family and neighbors, greeting them and blessing them for the new year. In our compound (and the one joined to ours) we watched three rams be killed and served up for the celebration. That’s a lot of stinkin meat if you didn’t know… The children and the village musicians (known as griots) walk around singing this little ditty full of blessings and dancing (the griots play drums and a guitar as well) so that those being blessed will give them money. The kids then get to spend their earnings at the corner shop buying a small loaf of bread that’s all for them or some other little snack they can find made on the street. Since our village has the REAL griots in it, there are people from all over who come to spend the holiday there. And for several nights in a row we could here the music blaring from a few compounds over as the young people danced late into the night. We even had a team from the capital come out and play our guys in soccer for two days. It was the first sports event I’ve been able to watch for any of our holidays so far, so even being soccer and not football or basketball, I was still grateful. Our team won. Most people are in an unusually chipper mood as they all get excited about the holiday and possibly seeing relatives from out of town as well as getting to show off their new snazzy outfits. With the cold days we’re having now it almost made it feel like winter/Christmas time back home… almost.
But its still been a good time for us. It’s been the first big event/holiday that we were able to spend with our family in the village, which was special for us and for them. And one of our ‘cousins’ who speaks a little English even wished me a ‘Happy New Year’ the other day. It was the perfect thing for him to say, and it really made my day, which amazingly enough, happened to BE New Year’s.

(I am aware that this is a little late being posted... remember I don't have the best internet here. Bear with me, k!)