Christmas morning in our fancy outfits
Well, another year has come and gone, and yes, we're still here in West Africa, preparing for the last year of our Peace Corps service. Yikes.
Christmas 2008 was kind of a blur. We invited our French friend Anne-Sophie over to our house for Christmas Eve. We ate a nice dinner together and then went to the midnight mass service at the Catholic Mission (like we did last year). It was fun to see everyone all dressed up and to hear the singing. We came back home around 11pm and proceeded to have a late-night feast in our courtyard. We stayed up talking and watching stars until 2am.
Our new friend Anne-Sophie
The next morning, we got up, had coffee and went over to the Catholic Mission for round two. The Christmas mass was a bit shorter this year (phew) lasting just over 3 hours. We went back to the house and had another mini-feast before heading out on bike to visit some of our neighbors (and of course eat some more).
Sonia and Les Guides (Catholic Girl Scouts) inside the church on Christmas morning
Around 3pm we biked with Anne-Sophie back to another village 25km away to celebrate Christmas night with two other Peace Corps volunteers and friends there. We ate well again (sensing the theme here?). Apparently it was a Christmas masquarade theme.
Who is this anyway?
New Years was, for the most part, a gastronomical sequel to Christmas. Except this time Sonia got a fancy new "Burkinabé" hair-do to start off the year. We stayed up late chatting on New Year's Eve so we could say "bonne année" at midnght. The next day we took it pretty easy, going to our open-air market and then coming home to prepare another meal at noon. We invited our neighbors over to eat with us. We had a range of plates and 30 liters of dolo!
It was a team effort taking 6 hours
Voila! The new-and-improved Sonia, 2009 edition
Making spaghetti for New Year's
New Year's brunch
Beans, rice, spaghetti, pork, salad and dolo
After eating we did another "tour en velo" to vist some of Sonia's co-workers. We stopped and saw Madame Nebié the vlillage midwife who herself gave birth to a little girl just a few weeks ago.
Sonia with Madame Nebie's baby girl
A tradition around Christmas time is that the children construct a little "creche" out of mud bricks in front of their homes. Think a nativity scene type thing. Here was our favorite.
A Burkinabé take on the nativity scene
And of course, our most favorite little friends, Miss Delphine and our new puppy "Café", celebrated with us...
Happy New Year. Lots of health, money, and all that stuff.
