Mother Rivier Day!

Tuesday, Feb 3, 2009

Wow was today an amazing day along with yesterday. Mondays have seemed to be a tough day for me, realizing how it’s the first day of the week and it seems that the kids need to be retrained from the weekend. So I came home pretty exhausted. I took a nap in the later part of the afternoon and when I got up I realized that everyone was cooking. You see, Tuesday (today) is the feast of Anna Marie Rivier – the foundress of the sisters of Presentation of Mary and who the school is named after. So today we had a day off school and all the kids came with their casual clothes to dance and have a party. So last night all the girls in the hostile and the sisters and other friends came to cook the meal for today’s festivities! This was a sight to see…let me tell you. The menu was benechine (the meal I couldn’t remember when I first got here). Benechine is so so so good. It’s fried chicken or fish that is later cooked with veggies. Once the veggies are cooked, you take the juice from the chicken and veggies and cook your rice in it. It’s honestly amazing. I have yet to learn exactly how to make it, but I can’t wait so I can have the recipe so I can make it when I get home. Just a side note, I know at first the initial shock of everything made eating new things not very appetizing but I have grown to love African cooking. I really love it! I’m so excited to take home some of these recipes so I can make them at home. Anyway…last night when I got outside, Sr. Josaphine and Sr. Odile were making dough to make donuts. They fried them in little balls and the kids loved them! Some of the girls were marinating the chicken and then later on they fried it. The thing I was most amazed at was how they cooked it all. It gets dark early here so by the time the cooking was just starting the sun was going down. So for the most part everything was done by firelight and the side house light. They just made little fires underneath the HUGE pots that they fried everything in. It was like camping…seriously…2 camp fires in the back yard. It was so cool. I have pictures of it all and I wish I could explain how cool it was. I just kept thinking, “this is So different…it’s so amazing how they do things around here.” I spent time taking pictures and the girls all wanted their own picture with me, so I have a string of pictures of just myself and one of the girls from the hostile. They love my camera…and I love taking pictures of them. We also made ground nuts (sugar coated peanuts) – which seems to be an ongoing thing. The kids absolutely love them! Sr. Josaphine and I laugh every time we see Saba making them because that means that we have to bag them….and Sr. Jos doesn’t really like doing it. I don’t mind but it but some days you’d think that was their vocation…to bag ground nuts! It started out being maybe twice a week, and now it’s almost every day that we have to make them. The kids buy them for 1 dallasis for a bag. So that night we also bagged ground nuts. It’s not really that bad…we all get to it and it’s done in no time and we all sit around and laugh talking or watching some tv. It’s fun.
Today we woke up and we didn’t have mass because we had it later in the evening at the house. So we got up and had to run to pick up a few things at the market. We got to the school and all the kids were there with their casual clothing and they absolutely love that! All the girls were dressed in dresses and most of the boys were in dress pants and a tie. Some just wore jeans and a t-shirt but everyone looked so nice. All I’m going to say is that the kids were so loud today and all over the place! They had the whole day to just do whatever they wanted and most of them danced and sang and played football.
Saba and the sisters got straight to work cooking the rest of the meal. I’m not sure how or why but even though we prepared the night before it still took all day to cook everything and we didn’t eat until around 4pm. I guess since everything is done from scratch it does take quiet a bit of time to collect everything and put it all together. It was amazing though and the kids loved it. We all laughed because even though Sr. Odile said that we don’t need that many veggies for the kids since kids around here HATE veggies, we still put a little bit in case there were some that wanted them and all the plates came back with the rice and chicken gone and all the veggies still on the plate. Today was my first day eating with my hands. Around here a lot of people eat just with their hands. They take the rice and make it into a ball and then place it in their mouth. When we all sat down to eat, Sr. Odile looked at me and said, “Uh Oh….you’re going to be baptized today.” Haha…she meant that I was going to really enter into the culture today by not using a fork or spoon to eat my food. Everyone had a good laugh at her comment. I was surprised at how well I was able to actually eat with my hands, but I think since I had been secretly watching Sr. Josaphine (who would rather eat without any utensils at the house even though we have lots to use) I caught on a bit quicker than most people thought I would. They all say that the food tastes better when you eat with your hands and honestly, I think the opposite. Give me a spoon or a fork and I’ll enjoy my meal a lot better. Another thing I find interesting around here is that a lot of people share meals. Meaning…they all eat out of the same bowl. We don’t do it here in the convent but the girls in the hostile do and the kids at the school did today. They have these big plastic bowls that we filled with lots of rice, chicken and veggies and 5 or 6 kids will sit around the bowl eating with their hands. It’s really very different. So along with eating with my hands today…I also ate from the same bowl as Sr. Odile, Sr. Catherince, Saba, and two other people I didn’t know. Talk about getting to know people.  I really enjoyed it though. Those are some of the things that we would never find back home and I appreciate the fact that I get to actually join in and embrace their culture here.
Earlier in the day, August (our bus driver), Emmanual and Sang (two of our teachers) and I went to get palm wine. Around here, since there are so many palm trees everyone drinks palm wine. It comes straight from the tree and isn’t very strong but if you let it sit – even for a few hours- it becomes very fermented and it wont take long to get TOO much into your system. I wanted to see where it came from and just down the road from the school they have a station where they have men who climb the palm tree to get it from the tree. So off we went and we came to a road that looked like (only my family and anyone who has been to St. Laurent Shrine will know what this looks like) but it looked like the road where we would go to get spring water from the shrine road (the one right beside the ferry. It was this tiny little road with only tracks for the tires and straight bush on both sides. We drove in a little way and then got out and had to walk for a little bit. All of sudden we came to this little hut in the middle of the forest. There was man there just laying around and August went to talk to him. He mentioned that one of the men were just coming back from getting some palm wine so we were supposed to sit and wait for him. So as we were waiting Emmanuel grabbed one of the rings that the men use to climb the palm tree and began trying to climb the tree. I took a few pictures and it was really kind of funny because apparently it’s harder than it looks. He took his shoes off to get more grip and it was really funny to see him climb back down. When the man came back we went a little bit further into the bush and sat down by a bunch of bottles. I guess when you go to buy palm wine, you sit and taste it and see if you want it. So we all sat there and had a glass of palm wine. The only thing I don’t like about it is that it was warm, and I think that’s how it’s normally served. It’s like an off-white color and tastes almost like coconut milk. It’s really quite good, although like I said, I would put it in the fridge before drinking it. Today I also had my first “Julbrew” – the Gambian beer that is made in Banjul. It’s really good and I would compare it to something like Michelob Light.
Today was the first day that I saw the affects of a sunburn on my skin. I know you’re all thinking why it’s taken this long to actually get a sunburn in Africa but I can honestly say that I haven’t spent much time in the sun. And…I guess maybe I don’t really think I’m very tanned since everyone else around me is black. I know I have a tan but today was the first day for a sunburn. Since we spent all day out in the sun It wasn’t hard to get a bit red. Nothing serious though…just a tiny bit red.
For the most part, the day was spent like this: the kids all had an assembly in the morning to say their last day of the novena and then they all split up and started dancing and singing. I definitely took lots of pictures of that since all the kids wanted their own pictures. Then they had some sort of dance competition. It was really funny! One of the little boys in my class went up to dance and oh my…it was hilarious! You’d think he couldn’t dance, but he was really good! I was really proud of him. After the dancing stopped…only for a moment since all these kids would dance all day and night if they could, we had a procession around the school. A couple kids held a picture of Mother Rivier and all the kids marched in the back. Seriously…they marched. They looked like a TINY group of soldiers….haha…too cute. Later on they had a play about Mother Rivier’s life but I missed it when I had gone out with the guys to get palm wine. But they all said that the kids were really good. It was kinda free for them after that.
During the rest of the day, like I said some of the boy were playing football and I’m not sure why but I think everyone around here thinks I’m very girly and that I don’t play sports or what. But I saw some of the boys shooting on the goal and so I went over and David, one of the students in Grade 3 said, “Miss Jennifa, you try and score on me. You try three times and then I’ll shoot on you.” I just smiled and said…”sure!” No one knew I played soccer in high school. So when I went to kick against him everyone was excited because I could ACTUALLY play with the boys. We had a crowd watching by the end of it. I enjoy playing with the boys, especially since when one of them does something wrong, they ALL get involved until the matter is resolved. And then they keep playing.
We all thought we were going to get away from school earlier today like around 2pm but we barely made it home for mass at 6pm. We didn’t even eat until 4 or 4:30 and by the time we cleaned up and got everyone on the bus it was close to 5:30 and 6:00pm. We had mass tonight at the house because it was Anna Marie Rivier day and the associates were all invited for a private mass in the grotto at the house. I haven’t told you about it yet…I forgot, I’m sorry! The grotto was put up by the money from the chickens and I guess it was Sr. Suzanne who was in charge of the whole thing. When you pull up to the house from the lane it’s on your left hand side. It’s white and had red trimming and they even have seating where you can sit and meditate on a picture of Mary with Jesus. There are lights incase you want to sit out there in the evening and even a lock if you want to sit there by yourself. It’s really really beautiful and one thing I really like about it (and I just noticed it tonight because of where I sat during mass) is that right behind the wall of the grotto you can see the African sky with the huge palm trees in the sky line. It’s unbelievably gorgeous in the evenings. And I like I said I sat facing it for mass, that’s why I noticed it. So we pulled up to the house and all rushed in to clean up a bit since they were actually waiting for us to start. Fr. Gabisi said mass and it was all in Mandika, so while everyone stared at the white girl and wondered who she was….they all noticed that she knew not a word that anyone was saying.  The thing I could say in Mandinka was one of the songs and that was only because I was sitting next the Sr. Bernadette and she had a paper with the words on it. I’ve learnt to bring my daily mass book with me for mass since most of the time I can’t understand the readings. I don’t know what I would do without it. After mass, the associates stayed for a bit but I came in and took a shower and got ready for bed. It’s been a long day and honestly I can’t believe some of the things I’ve witnessed today. I’m so grateful for the experiences that I’m getting. I keep thinking of how I wanted to go back to school so badly but the Lord had other plans for me…to come here. And honestly, no text book or lecture could ever compare to having first hand knowledge or another culture. It’s amazing to witness, and I’m grateful for all of it. Thank you Lord….

In Jesus and Mary,

Jen