I'll give you a quick summary of events before I get to the meat of this word slab.
I made it through my second, and last forever, month of fasting!!!! This year was much easier. I was ready with many coping strategies: go to the Catholic's house for lunch, go on a solo picnic in the bush, tell everyone I am pregnant and cannot fast. The latter may, or may not pose a logistical problem in about nine months...
Apparently, the twentieth day of fasting is a cause for celebration. I rode into Linguere around 10 am ready to nurse my sick volunteer friend back to health and maybe watch a movie or ten. Things started well. Until 11am.
This went on for a long time...a really long time. This is another taken at 8pm.
This went on until 7am the next morning. Needless to say, I have drafted a "thank you" letter to give to those responsible for proposing and enforcing noise ordinances in America.
The Main Event: Korite
After our moon of fasting, we celebrated the end of Ramadan with Korite. We didn't know the exact end date of Ramadan. It depends on the moon, the evening we see the first tiny silver of the moon we stop fasting. So, when we saw the fingernail moon the bowls got turned upside down and an impromptu dance party started.
Shortly after the celebration dance, the womenfolk and I began peeling buckets of onions and potatoes for the Korite lunch.
This is me and my namesake, Fama, wearing our fancy morning clothes. I was given this sweet red and black number by another friend in my village!
These are the kids and my dad, looking strangely like Jesus.
The day of, the women cut onions and potatoes and then we cut more. We prepare the meat and cut more onions. Meanwhile the men and the kids put on their fancy Senegalese clothes and go to the mosque.
This is me and my mom cutting 1/15 of the onions. Those yellow cubes are pure, delicious MSG. I can't get enough of it. If I'm out of the village, not eating Senegalese food, I get the MSG withdraw shakes.
How cute are the girls in their Korite outfits?
After we eat lunch, we lay around until it is cool enough to shower and put on the fancy, fancy threads. Then we hit the village. Everybody walks around to great the other houses and ask for forgiveness for any wrong doings. The kids go searching for candy or money.
This is me in my fancy afternoon outfit with 2 of my best friends. Another volunteer owns this dress. We do a region dress swap so that we can appear to have new outfits for holidays and baptisms, but don't have to spend the money to own 15 new, flashy Senegalese outfits.
Oh and got my hair did. My friend on the left did it. It hurt like the devil. Here is a close up.
Post Korite, in celebration of making it through another Ramadan, I went to Dakar to eat impressively filthy amounts of food. Dakar truly is the land of plenty. I ate Korean, sea food, American, ice cream, beer and happiness.
If you follow my blog closely, HA not even my mother does, you may be asking 'where is the fundraising request that was promised in the previous entry?' Well, bloggers, it is here
Please help me help kids.
I hope to post again tomorrow to write about the project in detail.
'ppreciate cha.
We are grateful for your dedication to the team and company.
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