Which reminds me, Dann and Darryl, I got your package, hee
hee! I will be having an occasion soon to wear the feather boa, and
have the Hedwig glitter in my bag to fete with on New Years! And,
wow, all the godiva chocolate and reeses cups, and the toblerone that lasted
about 5 seconds, and the peach tea. Thanks you guys.
Aunt Karen, just got your package too, with gobs of
m&ms again, which I am sharing, and the cocoa packs which I am not.
David, thank you for your continued regular weird packages
and postcards and yes! I have written you! Just finished a letter
the other day while stuck in a broken down taxi in the middle of nowhere.
Keep an eye out ...
Other things in village, quickly, and then will finish this
epic letter. Finally saw a successful live birth, a very happy occasion
and I got to hold her first cuz she was shivering cold and mom was still being
cared for. Discovered a few weeks later that they named her Laura.
She's the catechist's granddaughter by the way. He really does like me,
despite my devil worship, and was one of the health agents trained.
Let's see.. Oh yeah, witnessed a 50-something grandma
breastfeeding her granddaughter. The woman hadn't had a kid of her own in
years; I was perplexed. I could see the baby was suckling but I just
couldn't believe it -- I made her show me, and voila she squirted milk on
me. The baby was severely underweight -- but very happy! --, as her own
mama had stopped nursing months before (and went back to middle school), so we
counseled her to start supplementing the baby's diet. Maybe the old woman
was still able to nurse, but obviously her milk lacked nutrition.
We repaired one of our water pumps with the money we'd been
collecting since February, so I consider our collection
management changes somewhat of a success. Only somewhat,
because funds were still "borrowed" out to people and not replaced,
so we had much less money in the bank than we should have. But, they
seemed to finally understand the importance of good money management, and were
appreciative. They also finally elected a new, female, treasurer who is
evidently so far great about making sure daily collections are signed off
on, and I had a new lockbox made that has only a slit large enough to put money
in (but not take out), and the key resides with my trusted
collaborator. We will continue to deposit money into the bank, and see
about getting more sources of water funded and dug. We'll see. I
may seek funding from the Embassy, if the village can get its act
together. We still have no chief and no leadership, and it causes constant
problems.
Finally got invited to a voodoo ceremony, just the other
day, where three kids were asking the ancestors for protection and to
clear the path to success in their life. The first kid's ceremony didn't
work -- the rooster died on it's side and not on its back), cuz the chosen
practitioner (my trusted collaborator) forgot to drink of the gin, and the
ancestors wanted 600 more francs added to the pot as well. So, another
rooster had to be sacrificed: after the kid was rubbed from head to toe by
the live chicken, after he spit in its mouth 3 times, after the requisite
libations were drunk and the 600 francs added, they slit its neck and poured
the blood on the kids feet and at the makeshift alter, and then tossed the
chicken onto the ground and we all stood fixed to our spots waiting to see
if this time the ancestors would be satisfied and the ceremony
successful. Sure enough, the rooster writhed around and finally flopped
on its back with feet up in the air, the signal that the ancestors were pleased
and the kid was now protected. The next two were performed by 2
young kids, as that is who the seekers of protection had chosen, and they were
successful on the first try. We drank of the gin and the sodabe (local
moonshine) after each ceremony, so I was a tad tipsy by the end of it all.
Okay, of course there is lots more that has happened but I
suspect you'll all have to read this in sections as it is. Until next time, I
would always love to hear from you and get the scoop on your lives!