It's Easter. And I got married (ok, calm down, not really)

Ok, look at me here, blog posts in quick succession, aren’t you all proud of me? Actually, I’m leaving for Togo tomorrow so it was either post now or post in a week and a half. And after promising to post more option I figured this was the better option.

I’ve had a busy week, with the most significant event being a trip to visit Illy’s village for Easter to celebrate with her Catholic family. Almost all of her cousins came back to the village, where two sets of Illy’s aunts and uncles live, for the weekend. I left for Mont Roland on Saturday afternoon, taking a Ndiaga Ndiaye (see earlier transport post if you’re confused at this point). It was a smooth trip other than the fact that the traffic was really intense to leave the Dakar peninsula, so a trip that could take an hour took about four hours. Good news though: they seem to be constructing some sort of overpass system. Bad news: in the three months that I’ve been here not much has seemed to happen with it. I’m optimistic though . . .

As for the celebrations at the village, there was a lot of eating meat involved (they killed a cow on Friday and a pig on Sunday, and a few chickens along the way. All for one family). And for those of you who are like, “Yay, she’s left her vegetarian ways behind her!” you should be warned that while I tried the dishes I for the most part ate around the chunks of meat. I mean, it was dark (there’s no electricity there)! How was I supposed to dissect prior to eating?

Other than the weekend was occupied by the female cousins preparing the meals while the male cousins sat around and drank from one morning to the next without stopping. And then they kidnapped the girls one by one to get them to buy bottles of wine for the group. And generally acted like 10 year olds (although they range in age from 20 to 35). Their favourite games were to pretend that they were a camera crew and run around interviewing everyone, and then on Sunday they married each of the girls to one of the guys. My husband was wearing a bright orange Versace t-shirt for the ceremony which the “priest” performed by the power vested in him by the palm wine he was drinking. I somehow doubt it’s legit.

But anyway, the coolest thing about Easter here is the traditional dish that Catholic families make on Good Friday. It contains several of my favourite things in the world: baobab fruit, peanut butter, millet couscous, vanilla, and nutmeg (and of course sugar). And it becomes this wonderful soupy mixture. I’m salivating just thinking about it. And even more awesome is that they take it around to all of the Muslim families in the neighbourhood to share the celebration!

So that’s all for now, don’t have any pictures because my camera is currently broken. However, do expect more to be coming once my dad and brother bring me a camera in a couple of weeks!