Like a Pissed Off Camel

Happy New Year to all!

The mail run came today and though I know I’ve said it many times, it continues to be true that getting mail is such a delight! I have long since abandoned my “one-letter-at-a-time” strategy and spent the last 30 minutes wildly tearing through letters and packages like a pissed off camel. I even read the memos from the PC staff, though I did that more like a calm, rule-abiding camel.

Christmas and New Years were fantastic. I was only in Bol 2 weeks before leaving again for X-mas, but they were 2 loooong weeks. I traveled to N’gouri on the 22nd and spent the night at Pops’ house (he has a job in N’gouri now). When his cook brought breakfast in the morning, she said in Kanembu, “Oh, you’ve got a visitor!” Pops replied, “No no no, it’s my daughter!” Awwww, Pops! I wasn’t aware of it, but during those 2 weeks, they’d filled Patrick’s spot with Sam, from the new group. So in the morning, Sam and I trooped down to the market to wait for Darren, who was supposed to have reserved us seats in a car coming from Mondo (his site). He said they’d arrive at 8 or 9, but I am my mom and dad’s daughter and was there at 7:30, just in case. Well, 8 came and then 9 and then 10 and my claim to newbie Sam that “Peace Corps is all about learning to suppress panic” was wearing thin, that is, I was about to freak out a little bit. So I decided that if he didn’t show by 11, I’d get us seats in the other car going to NDJ that day. But,
alhu dullilah, at 10:54 a red beat up land cruiser with a longhaired, bearded nasara inside whipped into the market and we were off. The trip down was problem-free except for Darren and I not being able to remember the capital of Hawaii. (I got 47/50 state capitals right). Honolulu? Oahu?

We stayed at one of the embassy guy’s house. When one steps out of a bush taxi, one’s clothes, skin, eyelashes, hair, glasses, etc. are covered in a layer of fine, silty, gray dust. I’d been so looking forward to a hot shower, having not had one since early September. I dumped my pack, scurried delightedly to the bathroom and turned on the faucet to find only cold water! His water heater was broken! Boooo. I consoled myself with a cold diet 7-up and vegetarian chili and saltines. The embassy employees have a food allowance and can order anything they want from the states. This guy’s pantry looked like a Sams Club. He was a very generous host, very mi casa, su casa. I think he was amused at our wide-eyed, drooling “Oh my god, is that Kraft Macaroni and Cheese??” rapture.

We all gathered at the home of Emily and Aaron Holmes in Kelo. It was the furthest south I’d ever been and it’s a totally different world. South of NDJ, the landscape becomes more and more savannah-y. There are HUGE mango trees everywhere and many houses are made of red brick instead of adobe. It’s hard to describe how totally different it was from Bol. Culturally, it was clearly more Christian. There were pigs rooting around (there are zero pigs up north as Muslims are not fans of the other white meat), women in short sleeves or pants, and bars bars bars, including billibilli (traditional millet beer) bars. These consist of a woman with a big kettle and people sitting on benches or logs, drinking out of calabash bowls.

We were all together for the first time since June, except for Patrick, and one guy who was on vacation in France. I felt so genuinely happy to see every single person of our little PC family. Maybe it was the X-mas spirit or maybe it was the plentiful box wine, but I was thoroughly delighted with the gathering. There were about 10 kids from the new group there and it was great to hear about their first 3 weeks at site. Wow, that was a hard time. I never want to live through my first 3 weeks, no, 3 months at site again. Yikes. They would ask, “So it gets easier, right?” and I said, “Well, it becomes a different kind of hard,” which is true. I still cross off every day on my calendar and heave a sigh of relief at the end of the day. So, X-mas was great – we ate well and had fun and made very merry.