Easter

Written April 24, 2011
Today is Easter and I got to eat pork!!! This is huge because since Mali is a predominantly Muslim country (people who practice Islam are not allowed to eat pork), very few people eat pork here. Christians are really the only ones who eat pork, and they really only do it on big holidays. My homologue is one of the few Catholics in my village, so he along with 6 other people bought a pig for the Easter feast. God it was good!! I miss pork so much. I miss bacon. I miss pork chops. I miss pork tenderloin. I miss hot dogs... You get the idea. Anyway I basically shoved my face full of pork today. I ate and ate until my stomach hurt. I figured I should probably eat a ton because it could be another year before I get pork again! Besides our yummy pork feast, we attended a short Mass in the Village's tiny Catholic Church with my homologue as the Celebrant. My homologue is not an ordained priest, so we didn't get to have Communion. The church service was held in Senufo, so i just zoned out the whole time but also tried to pay attention to when people got up to stand and when they went to sit back down. At one point during the service, I guess I zoned out too far, I hadn't noticed that I was the only one standing and my homologue, mid-sermon and from behind the alter, says aloud "Gnire, you can sit down now." It was pretty embarrassing, but oh well. After the service was over, we all walked back home and sat under a big tree to drink tea. My homologue asked me to bring out my Uno cards so that we could play Uno with his friends. We ended up playing Uno for the rest of the day, and I mean all day; we started playing at 10:30 am and continued to play until I left to go take my bucket bath at 6:10pm! They are seriously obsessed with Uno here! Overall it was a pretty nice holiday. I wish I could've been home where I could've participated in the egg hunt and received a well stocked Easter basket, but since I couldn't be there, this was a nice replacement