Killing Goats and Christmas Craziness

Hello all...It's been a while. Thank you for your Christmas letters and packages...they are making me feel so loved and I really appreciate it.

Christmas was much better than I expected it would be. We were walking around Ziguinchor a few days before when a woman called us into her house. Somehow we were adopted into their family, that just happened to be Catholic, and spent Christmas eve and Christmas with them. They were the most welcoming family I have ever randomly met, and we felt very comfortable there. There were people of all ages, like most big Senegalese families, so feeding a few extra mouths wasn't a huge deal. We made sure to bring dessert though, and despite our wishes, we sat at the table and ate with a bunch of the men, since we were guests. The women who made the food sat around the bowl somewhere else. NOT fair, but not our place to decide. The Grandma of the family was definitely in charge, despite the fact that she was in a wheelchair and couldn't see very well. She was very spunky and kept offering us more wine and told us we had to dance. So we all danced... a lot.

Coming home from our long and otherwise uneventful but relaxing vacation was nice. The 31st was the day of goat-killing, which I watched all of except for the actual throat-cutting. The disassemblage was fascinating, and I was amazed to be eating grilled liver while the rest of the body was still being cut up and divided into the appropriate places. I don't know if I can handle sheep again, and I am really looking forward to being a vegetarian again when I get home, haha. Despite the disturbing side of it, I enjoyed the holiday. It's not very often that you get to see the entire process of how meat gets into your hands. And we got to get dressed up in our boubous and visit the neighbors. I'm not very good at that type of thing...I can get dressed up but they visit to chit chat in Wolof, and seeing as I don't really like chit chat in English, I was a silent guest. I think holidays here are mostly about getting dressed up and seeing as many people as possible. The eating is important too, but only after the first two objectives.

I hope you all had a good holiday! I will be putting up pictures eventually, but for the moment I'm at a stand still on that beause I have a lot of other work to do online. My apologies.