Happy Holidays!

So, I know I’m a little bit late on the holiday train, but I just haven’t really been on the internet long enough to write in my blog for a while so I’m gonna catch up. Here in Togo, my holiday season started in October and went pretty steady until January. It started with Tabaski, which is like the biggest Muslim holiday of the year. And, being in an all Muslim village, of course I had to celebrate. There was lots of food, music, dancing and more animal killing than I care to mention. Here we have the village procession, with the chief under the umbrella and the drummers leading the way.

Leading the way to what, you ask? To the goat slaughter.

And here, is me and some village friends sharing my 3^rd meal of the morning.

I spent Halloween in Atakpame, Thanksgiving in Tchamba, and Christmas In Dapaong.

New Years, I was back in my village. The midwife in my village had a New Year’s party for the village children at my house. She made a ton of food and the children went crazy. It was really cute.

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This is her and her son, Jean-Baptiste.

And then, there was a baptism, which wasn’t actually a baptism, seeing as how I live in a Muslim village. I’m pretty sure in English they would call it a naming ceremony. It was a pretty wild party by Muslim standards and we saw the newborn infant for all of 2 minutes when they strolled him in, announced his name, and then strolled him back out. Then everybody when back to dancing.

Good times.