Don't the girls all look cute? 
It's mid-October now.
Yes- I'm now 46 years old. And I don't care who knows it. Coyness does not become me.
This was our new cats' first Halloween with us. Dexter found it a bit daunting, but Daisy took it in stride. She even decided to take part and here we see her playing the role of the witch's familiar...
Here Sev sporting his Mafia look..
And Tya's Goth look fits right in at halloween, of course. She didn't even need a costume...
Alexa was the world's most adorable cat. Actually, she reminded me of a recent ad campaign for a perfume that she likes:
Somehow, I didn't manage to get a picture of Mallory. I guess between the treasure hunt and all the other fun, she was running around too much. But she was a super-cute witch....
It's a kind of psychedelic fairy cat. You can see that, right?
At any rate, it's what the twins wanted and they were thrilled. Plus, their pals were gratifyingly impressed.
I had to bake it at a friend's house (Thanks, Esther!) yesterday, as my oven is still broken. (As it would cost about 150 euros to fix it, I know we had better just go buy a new one. But I can't seem to make myself spend the money...)
Anyway, the kids were busy this morning getting everything ready. Even Severin lent a hand, but quickly fled the scene when the nine 11 and 12 year old girls showed up and started with the squealing and chattering.
A good time, as they say, was had by all.
It's a nearly exact copy of Sev's bass- as near as one can get using cake, fondant frosting and almond paste, anyway. I'm not sure I'll be able to cut it- I think I bonded with it emotionally during the five hours I spent struggling and cursing to create it. 
We just had our best Halloween celebration ever. However, as is so often the case, "best ever" involved very little sleep and I'm pretty wrecked today. A few of the guests went home after the party, but most stayed over night.
The kids and I made all the food and then Valentine had fun making funny labels for all the dishes. The tiny, croissant-wrapped hotdogs were labeled: Steamed Baby Mummies. tIf you look closely, you can see their tiny, mustard-dot eyes:
( As you can see on the sign, she wrote in French. I'm giving translations.) We also ate: Mashed Grasshoppers, Bat Paté Sandwiches, Baboon Brains, Roasted Witch Fingers, Griffin's Eyeballs, and Mini-kebabs of African Tiger Meat.
The kids all thought the labels were brilliant.
Mallory was supposed to be the Corpse Bridesmaid and Alexa was the Corpse Bride. The latter didn't let me get very spooky with her makeup, though. So she ended up not looking very "corpse":
Here's a bit of the general decor:
That's it for today. I have to go make dinner. 
Today is the 14th of July- the French national holiday.
It marks the date of the storming of the Bastille
We're having a little party here today in honor of the event- a decidedly non-revolutionary, non-violent barbecue for about 15 people.
Yikes! It's starting to RAIN now and I'm getting worried...
but I'll just have to hope for the best and wish a
Bon 14 Juillet à Tous!
The girls and I made the candy tree on the left. It turned out very cute. 
The guest arrive in just half an hour. I'd better get out of my frosting-covered clothes!
The last blog entry of 2008! I'd be tempted to make it long and meaningful, but I only have about five minutes in which to write it. So, I'm settling for short and superficial.Here I am, back from amazing adventures in Nanou. We returned at six last night, somewhat sunburned and tired, and very happy to be back. It was a great trip and I’m glad we got to do it. It almost got cancelled. It’s a long story:
Sev and I put on a new Film Crew movie that we just got from the
By 10:30, I quit fighting it and went to lay down in bed. I set the alarm and drifted off for an hour. At 11:30, I jumped into the station wagon, feeling much better. But soon, I felt a lot worse. The car, bought at so much expense and with such great hopes only a few months back, was making a noise. A weird noise. A bad, weird noise that was VERY unwelcome, as I had a busy day ahead on Saturday and a big trip to the bush planned for Sunday.
I listened intently as I drove, trying to figure out what it could be. It wasn’t an engine-y thing. It was definitely a sound from underneath the car. A steering-y thing? I soon gave up, as I am completely useless with cars. May as well ask Aslan the Wonder Goat what was wrong with it.
I was pretty concerned, but kept driving. I figured that if it broke down completely, I could use my cell phone and call for a rescue.
Luckily, it wasn’t very far to the party. Eldest Daughter was glad to see me and expressed amazement that I hadn’t gotten lost trying to find the place in the dark - which (sadly) would not have been beyond the realm of possibility, but I had had that all covered. I’d cleverly brought along the invitation, which had the phone number written on it, so that I could call for further directions if I went astray. Well, it would have been a clever plan…but as my daughter spoke, I realised that I’d left my cell phone at home. Typical. It certainly made the drive home more stressful, as getting help would be quite complicated. There are no phone booths in
As we drove, she told me all about the party. She also told me about the huge porn movie scare at her school! Short version: some 6th grade boys(11-12 years old) were joking around a couple of weeks ago and said that they were going to make a pornographic film. Which is very scary. I don’t know what kind of lives they have that, at their age, they 1. know what a porn film is and 2. think it sounds funny. Anyway, some of the girls heard about it and apparently thought it was for real. Rumours flew around the school. Finally, it ended with upset parents calling the school. One parent reported that she’d heard the boys had made up a list of girls that were going to be in the film. The already huge scandal swelled and became gigantic.
The boys were called in and said it was “just a joke”. They have been suspended from school for a few days. And I guess they had a good talking to.
The Superintendent (Proviseur) had the teachers read a letter to every class in the school about “respect for human dignity, the psychological health of children, etc”.
So, Eldest Daughter told me all this, then she also mentioned that they’d be having a “sex education” talk at the school at the end of the year.
“I heard about it. They show you how to put a condom on a banana;” she said. “I didn’t know fresh fruits were so dangerous that you need protection. I’m going to be more careful at breakfast from now on!”
She’s a funny girl, even at midnight, long after my brain has shut down.
So, there were kids with big white shirts on, straw hats and lots of paint stains- that was the artists. The others were dressed like card players, cyclists, African women carrying gourds, baskets, babies, etc. and one girl wore a white plastic rice sack. Whatever.
The weekend ahead is looking extremely busy, full of strange activities that will, no doubt, be fertile grounds for future blogging:
Saturday morning, the twins will be performing their annual school “Carnival”. As in previous years, each class offers a skit or dance in a show that takes the whole of a morning, but seems to occupy an entire geological era. Over the years here in Ouaga, I’ve seen my kids perform as: roses, lions, Roman soldiers, geishas, Paleolithic hunters, Chinese coolies, bubbles, disco dancers, clowns, playing cards and the colour blue. SO, in keeping with a long tradition of bizarreness, Mallory is going to be a painter. (Hey! Nothing says “Showtime!” like watching someone paint -don’t you think? ) Alexa will be a waitress - an evil waitress that poisons the body guards of the President by bringing them a tray full of doctored drinks. Then the bad guys will come in their cardboard cars, but the secret agents arrive…is this making sense to you? Anyway, the real problem is that JP has our digital camera and the movie camera (see yesterday’s post for details) out in the bush with him. So, I won’t have any pictures to post unless I figure out a solution soon…
The second big event is a trip back out to the village of Nanou on Sunday. Long-time readers of my blog will remember that the twins underwent a traditional Winyé twin “baptism” ceremony there back in 2006. Well, that’s not the end of the story. We have to go back to complete the process and “thank” the spirits. So, we’ll be taking off at 7am on Sunday morning. We’re just going for the day, but I have no doubt it will be one chock-full of interesting, if not frankly freaky, incidents.
Add to this menu of delights the fact that tonight Eldest Daughter will be attending a birthday party. A real, 14-year-old kind of party: boys and girls, music and snacks, 7 pm until midnight. Now, I don’t have a good track record in this matter (see this post), but I’m hoping to do better this time around and not fall asleep, stranding my daughter with no transportation, leaving her to depend on the kindness of strangers. Well, not actual starngers. But still. .. Anyway, Severin has kindly promised to stay awake with me, watching stupid movies. I'm thinking Strange Brew. Or would that be considered child abuse?
The Geekiest Expat Mom Ever Goes to Gourcy, Part II
Just as night fell, our host arrived in a gleaming Toyota Land Cruiser, his kindly driver Pascal at the wheel. Antoine jumped out, smiling. But the smiling didn’t last long. He sat down with us and told us that there had been a terrible accident just three hours before. The son of his good friend/next door neighbour had just been killed on the road to Ouahiagouya. He’d taken two friends in his father’s SUV to go for an evening of fun in the big city. The vehicle rolled and he died on the spot. Besides all the incredible heartache of the event, there had been further drama. Mossi custom demands that the body be buried at the site of any accidental death. But the local priest tried to outmanoeuvre the traditional powers and had sent men to pick up the body for burial at on the church grounds. Antoine had been trying to manage this situation and at the same time move the night’s planned festivities to another location. Because of the tragedy right next door, here was no question of having a party with music and dancing at the hotel. None of us would have been surprised if he’d cancelled the whole thing. His good friend had just lost his 24 year old son, after all. But he insisted that it would go on. He had already engaged the performers and had the food prepared. Furthermore, Yann and his wife were not the only people being honoured. In fact, it turned out that the party was also in honor of (probably primarily in honor of) a French couple who were visiting Gourcy for the month. Gilles and Marie-Gabrielle turned out to be a very sweet pair of retired farmers from a small coastal village in
Antoine informed us that the party would be held in his “garden”. It still wasn’t clear exactly what that meant.
I asked “So, it’s a garden with plants? A vegetable garden?”
“Yes” was the only answer I got, with no clarification, leaving me with the impression that I would be performing to an audience of about 12 people, all seated on folding chairs scattered across an expanse of dirt dotted with leafy cabbage plants.
I went into the bathroom to dress, after cautiously inspecting the drain for sinister insect life.
I peered doubtfully into the tiny mirror in the bathroom.
My self-evaluation was as follows: If somebody gave me a bouquet of flowers, I’d look exactly like a table decorated for a baby shower. A not very classy baby shower.
But it was too late to do anything about it. I had to back outside to join the others.
We started out for the Garden. It turned out that we couldn’t drive there in our own cars, as the track leading to the site was deemed far too rough.
So, Antoine’s
Despite Pascal’s careful driving, the huge eroded crevasses defeated his attempts to keep the ride smooth. We kept hearing ominous sounds from the back cargo area and hoped that our dinner wasn’t being dumped all over the floor. On the other hand, it was almost nine pm and we still had a show to see before dinner would be served. My years of previous experience in Africa told me that it would be hours before we ate. By then, everyone would probably be so hungry that we would be perfectly happy to eat couscous scraped off the floor of a vehicle.
We bumped along for about 15 minutes until we again saw the bright glare of electric lights. Up ahead there was a blindingly-lit, walled compound with a large number of cars, scooters, and bikes parked outside. Through the open gate , we could see a crowd milling.
JP said “That can’t be it”.
But it was.
Pascal drove the
My first thought was “Thank heavens that I didn’t wear capri pants!” followed quickly by “Please God, make them forget that Yann and I are supposed to sing.”
I had been all prepared to sing in a vegetable garden in front of a dozen people. This would be like singing at the freaking Super Bowl…if the Super Bowl was much smaller and located in rural
But they didn’t forget. No such luck.
Tomorrow be ready for Part III, in which Burkina Mom is a Bad Guest.
I thought we could slip out unnoticed. That was my plan. We’d stay for the ceremony and then quietly get into our car and drive off. My plan went the usual way of all plans in Burkina: straight to hell. WAWA, as we say around here.
The invitation arrived weeks ago, tri-fold cardboard covered with gold script and drawings of rings, doves , bells, flowers, ribbons, and monogrammed flying saucers (as near as I could tell). There were also creepy disembodied hands and a very un-African looking couple in wedding finery occupying the central spot.
The marriage of Djakaridja and Banvin would take place at the City Hall at Bogodogo on December 8 at 4pm. This grand fête was to be presented by the Gnamou,
Frankly, I had other plans for Saturday. I didn’t even know these people. We got invited because JP knows Banvin through his work among the Winyé. But in the interest of marital harmony, I agreed to buy the gift, get dressed up and go to the wedding. I carefully avoided committing to the “lunch” that was being offered afterwards.
Getting ready to go was an epic saga. I had spent my day from 8am to 3pm at a jumble sale, melting in the heat, trying to unload outgrown clothes and toys so as to make room for incoming Xmas gifts. The second I got back home, I was set upon by various people needing money, medical help, or just stopping by to say “Bonjour”. The phone also rang for me constantly. All in all, it was pretty hard to get presentable in the short time allotted. At one point, I thought I was good to go, but JP sent me back, pronouncing my hair to be completely out of control: “en bataille” as they say in French. I finally got it subdued to his satisfaction and we jumped into the car, rushing to make it in time for the ceremony. A few minutes before four o’clock, we pulled up in front of the City Hall of …..Baskuy. Bogodogo is the other one, on the other side of town. Right. We turned around and headed east. We got there about 15 minutes late- far too late to get even a place to stand inside the tiny, crowded room where civil marriages are done. It’s a sad little room, hidden at the back of the building. Meant to hold about 50 persons seated, it invariably is stuffed with over 100, and the overflow crowds around outside the doors to peer inside. Marriages are, by definition, a big affair in
Anyway, we were late, too late to even get a good spot outside the door, so we sat in the shade out in the dirt parking lot, attending the wedding at some abstract level.
After the wedding were the photos. Many, many, many photos. A small garden area on the grounds provided the backdrop for every conceivable permutation of wedding picture. I even ended up in one. Next to me is my friend Delphine. She is a small, elegant person with a severe hat fetish. I have known her for about 15 years and over this period her headwear has steadily increased in size. If a strong wind caught one of them, it would snap her neck like a twig. Luckily, it was a calm day and the the picture session went well.
But the fun was only beginning. There was no escaping the “lunch”. JP had his heart set on joining the festivities, which were to be held at a nearby outdoor restaurant. But as we had no idea exactly where it was, we were obliged to be a part of the wedding cortege, a line of cars driving slowly along, lights flashing and horns blaring. We drove and drove and drove, blocking traffic for miles. We putted around for about 20 minutes, finally ending up at the restaurant – which turned out to be about two blocks away from where the marriage had been held.
The reception meal was astonishing and merits its own blog entry, which I hope to find time to write soon. Right now, I’m busy preparing for tonight’s Christmas program in church. Valentine and I are singing a duet and the other three kids are part of a dramatic re-enactment of the Rudolph saga. The twins are reindeer and Sev gets to be Santa. ( He does not, just so you know, have shifty eyes. I made that up.)
I have a deep anti-social component to my personality. The fact that I have a husband, four children and a team of no less than 3 household helpers really puts a cramp in my aspirations to hermit-hood. Luckily, I do have some small control over my life: I can refuse to go to parties. I hate parties. I hate smoking. I hate loud music. I don’t like to get drunk. I don’t like chatting with people I barely know. And people that I do know and like, I prefer in small quantities.
But when R. invited me to the Chinese New Year’s party for the Taiwanese Embassy, how could I resist? My undergrad degree is in anthropology, after all, and here was a chance to observe a the local Taiwanese community during their biggest holiday of the year, welcoming in the Year of the Pig. And I was also counting on some excellent food at the buffet.
R. is the mother of Mallory’s best friend. Mal and E. have been tight since the family arrived back in 2001, direct from
But I figured that the New Year party would be an interesting cultural experience. Just this once, I said “yes”. Then R. asked if I’d be willing to learn a song in Mandarin to sing at the party with a small group of women. Hey- flattery will get you everywhere with me. I showed up at rehearsal two weeks ago and along with nine other women. (each of us from a different country:
and stumbled through a session of phonetic Chinese for the song “Ping Tsu”.
To help us practise at home, R. gave me a gift that I will treasure forever (really!!!). She made copies of a Chinese karaoke dvd for all of us. It has music videos of several songs in Mandarin and it is a trip! The fashions are right out of an episode of Dynasty circa 1985. The shoulder pad, while extinct in Europe and North America, is apparently alive and thriving in the
All of the female leads have a penchant for writhing around with diaphanous scarves fluttering in the breeze. And there can't be a single red rose left in the entire country, either real or fake. They are all needed as music video props. The music itself is a melange of The Carpenters, Abba and Kenny G, all done in a minor key with high-pitched, nasal vocals.
We had a couple of rehearsals with the Burkinabé band that went pretty well. We didn't sound exactly like the music video, but I thought that was a good thing.
So, the music seemed to be under control. But one huge question remained: What should I wear?
To be continued........
