How the Holidays Went...

In short, they were fantastic.

We got back from our December organizational meeting in the capital still flushed and giddy from seeing the other 20-some remaining people (we started with 33, we’re down to 25), many of whom we hadn’t seen since we completed training; we’d also gotten to see the entire group that had come a year before us (and is leaving around June of this year, about the same time that a new group is coming in), which was great.

So we’re still glowing from that; then we get back to our village, and the real happiness started. We were happy to be back, and people were happy to have us back. This is actually what helped us realize how much we do love our village, the people, the feel of it – we left for a week, and came back. It really felt like we were coming home. We were barely able to pay for a single ride the first week back – the minibus owners mostly all know us, we work with their kids, and so they were just telling us to get in. I even caught a ride into town one day with the ambulance – we live in the hospital compound, so we’re getting to know most of the people who work there.

But free rides were just the beginning. Our area is the “breadbasket” of the country, in rice, fruits, and vegetables. Almost everyone farms, and everyone keeps a garden, as well as some random fruit trees. We had so much food foisted onto us over the holidays that it was spilling out of our fridge whenever we opened the door. Families gave us food; people at the market gave us food; people who run restaurants gave us food. We got holiday food like apples, grapes, walnuts, and Black Cake (a really complex cake, quite wonderful, sour mixed with mildly sweet, made with rum); we got everyday food like rice, sugar, limes, potato, vegetables, other fruits; we got specialty food, like Chiney (Chinese) food. At one point we were begging people to let us pay; no one wouldn’t let us. We’re really well taken care of here.

Also, the Muslims in the area celebrated a holiday called Eid (fully Eid-ul-adha), wherein cows are slaughtered. Apparently, there are a lot killed, and in a small, close-knit community like this, the Muslims share out their goods with everyone. Fortunately, our area is majority Hindu, and Hindus don’t eat beef. So, we got some instead. But in a developing country, beef cuts are a bit strange. As a friend from NYC, who watched the slaughter, said – “There’s no respect given to the filet mignon, no respect given to the flank steak!” And pretty much everything is used. I helped saw up a cow’s shinbone, from knee down to foot, with a saw, after which we ate it in a soup. It was chewy.

We went out for Christmas Eve, as Ovid says, to see and to be seen. It was something else. We went up into the bigger towns, where everyone was eating and drinking and congregating in the street – there was no car traffic going anywhere, except to and between the big towns. Every thirty feet there was a big wall of speakers; each wall was playing its own music, independent of the wall thirty feet to either side. By about two in the morning, we’d made it up into a restaurant / club balcony area, where we sat and had a few beers and looked out onto the crowd. It was neat… and then it started to rain. Party over, and an hour+ trip back to the village.

New Year’s Eve (called Old Year’s here), we attended church as promised. I kept dozing off in the middle of singing songs, would be nudged awake, and then pick the song back up. Then we went home in utter blackness (it was a new moon), so we were afraid that alligators had crawled up out of the trenches and were waiting to eat us in the shadows. She went by one (a small one) early one morning run, so ever since we’ve wondered about it (and she’s waited til better light to go running).

So, that’s that. Our week in the capitol was followed by three weeks’ vacation from school. Another volunteer visited us for one week of that, and we also visited with another two volunteers in our region, which was nice. Then, back to the grind. I’ve now been to every house in the village that has a computer, I believe, fixing every problem that comes up (except the ones that I can’t). Basically, it’s printing problems and whatever, all the stuff that 12-year-olds right have to solve for their grandparents (sorry to all you grandparents out there, but you know it’s true). Just like in the States, all the 12-year-olds are, in fact, picking up everything immediately. One kid fixed his own printer after watching me fix another family’s. It’s always impressive. I’ll probably run a few classes, invitation only, for people who already own computers. A lot of stuff is more meaningful, or perhaps only meaningful, if you have your own system, and luckily it’s starting to spread like a bad cold out here.

For the future: We have a trip coming up in February, out of the country – our first real, non-working vacation! – then Easter in March, then mid-service for a week in the capital in April; the last will probably be two weeks for us, as we’ll be helping another volunteer run a workshop at her site. Then school’s out in June, two months of summer, then back in for the last go-round. My goodness, it’s going quickly. What will we leave here after we’ve gone? General goodwill, perhaps, but what will be carried on by others? Will those people then leave for the States as well, like so many before them? So many come, leaving smiles, good memories, benevolent shadows… and little else.

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Endnote: Sorry for the late posting on this; this was due to be up mid-January. As you may know, we've had some events occurring in-country lately, starting in late January and continuing through mid-February. We'll be writing a bit about how this has been (as much as we can, given the circumstances) from our perspective. We'll also write about our trip to Carnival in early February -- for now, suffice it to say that the vacation was much-needed, and appreciated.