Happy New Year!

OK...I know I haven't posted about Christmas and safari yet (which was amazing!!!), but since New Years was fresh on my mind I decided to write this one first!

After spending the week of Christmas surrounded by a bunch of yovos (white folks) I decided to celebrate New Years with my Beninese host family. It also provided me with an opportunity to go back and visit them for the first time since I left for post 4 months ago. Not really knowing what to expect, I mentally prepared myself for a potential 36 hours of boredom. Living with them for 2 months taught me that visiting extended family often means quietly sitting in front of the TV watching music videos with minimal conversation. Much to my pleasant surprise, this celebration was nothing like what I expected.

I arrived at my host sister's house around 8:30 pm on the 31st to find her and Maman busy in the kitchen and I anxiously began awaiting the arrival of the other guests. I assumed we'd have a big feast around 10 or 11 and then prepare for the big change at midnight. Turns out the other guests arrived at 2 and we started eating at about 4 am. Maman didn't even shower and change into her nice outfit until after 1.

In Benin, the entire celebration comes after midnight. Everyone stays at home with their more immedite family members until 12, and then they travel around visiting friends and family until the early hours of the morning. There is nothing resembling our anxious countdown clocks and huge parties before midnight (which makes so much sense now that I think about it, because time is such a fluid thing here and "being on time" at a certain hour doesn't really matter). At about quarter to 12 my sister passed out sparklers to the kids (there were about 6 including some visiting cousins), and much to my delight I got to play with them too!! I don't think I've touched a sparkler in about 10 years, but all the kids made sure that my hands were never empty. Shouting "Tata Kristin! Tata Kristin!" they sometimes were handing me two or three at a time. We were all so focused on the sparklers that I didn't even know when the clock changed to 12. A minute or two later someone said it and then a few fireworks started going off randomly around the city (no colors, just the big bang ones with white sparks). At some point my sister passed out sparkly masquerade masks and a few goofy hats, making for cute pictures and fun with the kids. One uncle even wore my sister's long-haired wig all night with goofy sunglasses. It made me smile to see the same type of family goofy-ness you see at home during the holidays.

Although I was beyond exhausted, all the playing with the kids helped pass the time until the guests arrived. Around 1:30 am Tata Kristin also had to take a little nap because I was so tired and of course the kids were not too happy about that. Anyway, our most important guest (Maman's big sister) did not arrive until about 3 am, so we had to wait for her to begin the feast. Before anything was ate or drank, her and Maman said a prayer for their ancestors and poured them a drink of alcohol into the ground. Then we had a pretty typical Beninese meal and when I headed to bed at 5:30 everyone was still hanging out on the patio.

While I may have been the first in bed, I was still the last to get up at 9 am. Of course there was another day long party to attend! We got the kids up and out, and I headed over with my sister around noon. It was at a cousin's house, and it was definitely the nicest house I've been in since I've been to Benin. Complete with a big kitchen, oven, fridge, and multiple bathrooms! I even got to ride in their new toyota to help pick up the whole roasted goat she had catered. Well, basically the whole afternoon was spent eating tons and tons of delicious food (including the delish chocolate cake I baked at home and brought along for them), dancing to everything from American hip-hop to traditional Beninese drums, blowing up crazy huge balloons, wearing more goofy sunglasses, and of course drinking plenty of alcohol. One of my favorite parts was just after dusk when the little girls invited me up to the balcony to tell stories. They told all sorts of things and I told the Little Mermaid. (Note- when you start telling a story in Benin, instead of "once upon a time", you say "my story rolls, rolls, rolls, and lands on..." and then you say the name of the main character). All in all it was pretty fantastic and it really made me feel like part of the family. When it comes down to it, the Beninese know how to party, and when I was ready to leave the morning of the 2nd at 9 am to head back to post, they were all still sleeping...