Ah the Zavala's have landed in Burkina Faso and created quite a stir in a small town called Bagré! This is the small village community that Elena, my sister, has been living for the past three months. She lives in a small house, complete with latrine and hen coop.
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| Elena's new home! |
Her direct neighbors are teachers at the high school that is nearby however she has made connections with most families in the community and I am happy to report that she has fit into the community very well. Our time with her was spent seeing all of her friends and neighbors, drinking lots of sodas, eating lots of food and cleaning her house (verrry necessary during the dry season when dust coats everything no matter how much you try to get ride of it). This year was the first year that we did not spend with our extended family ( Zavala or Ege), which has its downsides, however it was by no means a quiet Christmas.
The day of we all got dressed up in our finest and headed out to church.
Elena has been going to a Protestant church just about every sunday and so we decided to accompany her this time. Usually a girl from the village by the church comes by to pick her up, but with impatient American parents we opted not to wait for her and head over (just in case it started without us). After a quick bike ride (A friend of Elena's found us bikes to borrow for the time we were there which is very lucky as you really cannot get around the area of Bagré without one) we arrived at the church. immediately we were ushered into the house of the minister where we sat in front of the TV and shook hands with everyone in the house as well as anyone who wanted to come in the room (which felt like the whole village).
We could hear noise coming from the church and soon after we were once again escorted outside and into the church. The noise had been coming from a small band (aka a VERY beat up drum set,several boxes that were sat upon and used as drums, a loud bass guitar and an electronic keyboard set to organ setting) and all the people in the church singing and dancing. The children were hopping around in the front while the adults were standing in place moving and singing to the music. We very quickly realized we were guests of honor as they placed us in the front, on the stage next to the ministers. One of them translated for me during the service, which ended up being very helpful. First off everyone sang and danced several songs and each of the choirs (yes there were muliple, but they were more groupings as in "female choir" "everyone choir" "young girls choir" "children's choir" " and "adult male choir") sang a song or two before the service started. The minister conducted his sermon in More (Elena, forgive my spelling), the local language and the translator very kindly translated everything into french. We were not the only visitors and so I don't think it was just for our benefit. The minister prowled around the stage like a proud lion instructing the pack on the joys of Jesus Christ. It was by far the most intense experience in a church I have every had. At the end they had us introduce ourselves and then we were presented with a gift from the church, in the hopes that we could forge a union between their church and our church in America (I neglected to tell them that we were not actually Protestant but Unitarian Universalist, whoops!) as it turns out it was not a chicken (contrary to our first guesses) but a large portion of handmade fabric, a very generous gift indeed. After the service we were ushered back into the house of the minister along with the other guests (ministers from the capitol city) to drink sodas and eat what I believe was chicken.
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| Elena, Me, her friend from Ivory Coast, another girl and my Mom |
Then we went to the house of my sister's friend, a girl from the Ivory Coast who is 14 years old, where we had more sodas. She told us that her family had a chicken for us, but it had disappeared. As we were leaving the chicken as found and came home with us on the handlebars of Elena's bike.
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| Bringing home the bacon! Uh...chicken |
Once we arrived home my dad passed out on the floor and my mom, sister and I decided to "faire le tour" aka go around to all the neighbor's houses and eat/drink ourselves silly. I think I ate more popcorn and meat then I have ever eaten in one day. After 3 or 4 houses (hard to remember) and several hours later we headed home and crashed. A more exciting and exhausting Christmas then I have ever had!
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| Elena eating popcorn after a long day |
My trip to Burkina was a great experience, especially to see my sister at her new site and the community she has become apart of, not to mention understand why she never seems to have a moment to herself! The village may be small in size but it is big in personality and heart. As one woman said, "I want my spice!!!"
We could hear noise coming from the church and soon after we were once again escorted outside and into the church. The noise had been coming from a small band (aka a VERY beat up drum set,several boxes that were sat upon and used as drums, a loud bass guitar and an electronic keyboard set to organ setting) and all the people in the church singing and dancing. The children were hopping around in the front while the adults were standing in place moving and singing to the music. We very quickly realized we were guests of honor as they placed us in the front, on the stage next to the ministers. One of them translated for me during the service, which ended up being very helpful. First off everyone sang and danced several songs and each of the choirs (yes there were muliple, but they were more groupings as in "female choir" "everyone choir" "young girls choir" "children's choir" " and "adult male choir") sang a song or two before the service started. The minister conducted his sermon in More (Elena, forgive my spelling), the local language and the translator very kindly translated everything into french. We were not the only visitors and so I don't think it was just for our benefit. The minister prowled around the stage like a proud lion instructing the pack on the joys of Jesus Christ. It was by far the most intense experience in a church I have every had. At the end they had us introduce ourselves and then we were presented with a gift from the church, in the hopes that we could forge a union between their church and our church in America (I neglected to tell them that we were not actually Protestant but Unitarian Universalist, whoops!) as it turns out it was not a chicken (contrary to our first guesses) but a large portion of handmade fabric, a very generous gift indeed. After the service we were ushered back into the house of the minister along with the other guests (ministers from the capitol city) to drink sodas and eat what I believe was chicken.
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