(Bi)Weekly Update: 4.26.11

• Please Fund the Bee!  K, I hate asking for money.  HATE IT.  I'd rather run a mile on burning porcupines than beg for cash, and we all know how much I love running.  But, here I am: the spelling bee's in trouble.  With a month and a half to go before the deadline, we still need $750 to get our kids to Natitingou to have the spelling bee... if we don't get it, the spelling bee's impossible.  Please, please, please send in a couple of bucks if you have the chance -- I really don't want to tell Estelle and Soulemane that the trip they worked so hard to win is cancelled.  : /
• Return from IST.  We had In-Service Training last week, so I was home for less than a week.  As it was still Easter break, I pretty much just sat outside with the mamas for that whole time.  Exciting!
• Easter With the Voodoo Man.  I planned to spend Easter Sunday like normal people do: going to church for 4 hours, then eating and drinking until just shy of the point of vomit.  My friend Juliette invited me to fete with her family (Doloresse, Dorothe, Romeo, and the other kids), so I bought a chicken to contribute and was ready for mass by 6:30am.
  
  ...then I waited.  At 9:30, her kids finally came over to tell me that she'd decided to skip mass to cook delicious riz au gras, which I was totally cool with.  After watching her ecrase tomatoes, onions, and piment, fry the chicken in oil, and cook the rice in broth and red palm oil and all sorts of other things, we ate.  SO good.  I played with her kids for a while -- photo shoot, drawing lessons in the sand, and "watch the kids get mangoes from the tree" -- and then Juliette decided that the two of us needed to visit her husband, who was in turn visiting the traditional medicine man.  Easter with voodoo man?  That's normal, right?
  
  The following 4 hours were hilarious, bizarre, and occasionally a little awkward.  I'd write it all out, but that seems like a waste of everyone's time... thus, bullet points:
                      - We got there, and everyone has to take a welcoming shot of sodabi.*
                      - Voodoo man invites me to be his 4th wife. I say he can be my second husband if he'll do the dishes.  He thinks I'm joking.
                      - Juliette, Husband, Voodoo Man, and I take another shot of sodabi.
                      - Voodoo man tells me that his name in Gun means "Danger Elephant."  I consider marriage for the name change.
                      - It's my turn to buy the sodabi, and we all take shots.  I pour about half of mine out and say it's a gift for the ancestors.  This is received very well.
                      - Voodoo man tells me that he wants 10 kids with me (I hope at this point that he's still joking).  I tell him I want maximum 2.  He tells me that in order to have our 10 children, I will have to slap his "lizard" (ew) to wake it up, because it doesn't work all that well.  His wife, to whom I've applied pink lipgloss, concurs: "Nor, really, it pretty much doesn't work at all."
                      - I change the subject, and we talk about Nigeria for a while.  Juliette and I stand up to leave, have to take another demi-shot for good luck, and ride off into the afternoon on her (sober) son's moto.  I regain sobriety about a week and a half later.  Happy Easter, everyone!

* The sodabi was more than usual for me, but remember that I was with a good friend who I trust (Juliette) with my safety.  Also, they think you're weird and/or rude if you won't drink with the group on fete days.