OK, so I was totally wrong earlier when I said Easter was the last holiday I’d miss. I completely forgot about April Fools’ Day, which apparently isn’t so celebrated in South Africa. It’s a shame, too. This was actually a really fun holiday around the house I lived in in LA. Most of us tended to have a pranky personality.
So, in honor of the day, I thought I’d share with you a photo from those days…here’s a pic of a depantsing gone bad.
So the day AFTER Easter we had an Easter egg hunt with the kids at the home. (I have no idea why it wasn’t on Easter, but que sera sera)
However, there were no actual Easter eggs. We did, though, have lots of these chocolate egg-like things. As you can see, they’re no Cadbury eggs. Mmm…Cadbury.
So when I e-mailed my sister yesterday, I realized Easter is the last major holiday I’m missing away from the States.
When I talked to my family earlier that day, I also remembered how zany my family is (and found out one of you has been telling my mom about the pickpocketing…). So, yeah, I have to say, I promised my sis I wouldn’t leave her alone for family holidays for an entire year again.
And since I have no Easter pics, here’s another pic of a penguin in South Africa.
Random? Yes. But that’s me.
Just imagine he/she is telling you “Happy belated Easter.”
Monday I was filling out papers and I asked the German girl living at the same place what date it was. “The 17th,” came her response.
“What??? It’s St. Patrick’s Day today and I totally forgot?” I couldn’t believe that I not only forgot but I also did absolutely nothing. This was the first St. Patty’s day in nearly a decade where I was without a big parade, green beer, or my “Everyone loves an Irish girl” shirt. Seriously, this was one day that post-college has continued its college-day revelry. I mean, twice I purposefully spent it in NYC (and once even planned the flight so I could spend part of it in NYC and the other in LA) and once even got to spend it with an Irish Patrick come back to visit his LA pals.
But here in South Africa. Nothing. And when I couldn’t get over my surprise, the German girl asks me, “What’s St. Patrick’s Day?” Huh? My mouth stood agape as I tried to think of how to explain it.
“You seriously don’t know?”
Her response: “Well, I’m not very religious…”
Hmmm…never thought of the “St.” in “St. Patrick’s Day” giving it such a religious feel…
Last week, I made a last-minute trip for one of my projects with Impulse. I went to a village with one of the girls who now works at the office but had previously been trafficked.
The whole trip was of course a bit of an adventure: as the girl speaks 6 languages quite fluently…but English only limitedly, there is no electricity in the village, and the day we were supposed to leave, the holiday “bandh” had already taken place there.
It was one of those rare trips where you’re really a traveler, but not traveling for the purpose of travel. And, I have to say, I got pretty excited when on the way there, the girl was telling me that there are elephants that come around the village every night/morning. That excitement wore off pretty quickly when it became 4 in the morning, and I’m squatting to pee in the middle of a frickin’ freezing field…was thinking then may not be the time I want to see an elephant heading my way.
When I went back to sleep, the girl’s (absolutely adorable) nephews kept trying to wake me. “Auntie, *&^$%,” they were saying as they pulled the covers off my head. As I don’t speak the local language, I had no idea what they were saying. They’d been asking me to take pictures of them all night before we went to sleep, so I thought that’s what they were asking. Now, though, I think they may have been telling me they were out watching the elephants, but yeah…I kept sleeping.
Back at the office, I found out that the girl’s sister had been attacked by an Elephant last year and hospitalized for months. Have to say, I’m pretty happy with my decision to stay in bed.
Almost forgot that the New Year’s Eve concert featured an American band.
Difference United performed as (I think) the third band of the night. During their performance, something about them made me think they must be a Christian rock group. I think it was the facts that the lead singer had a bit of a Southern twang, I’d never heard of them, and they had these really bad dancers wearing white tees and red track pants…doing a kind of hyped-up version of the “signing” hand dances popular in mega-churches in the ’90s (if you don’t know what I’m talking about, there’s a scene in Napolean Dynamite where Napolean is performing one of these dances with some girls).
The band’s myspace.com page confirmed the group’s Christian roots, which is probably why they came to uber-Christian North East in the first place. Sometimes it’s so weird being in a place that’s more Christian than the Bible belt I grew up in.
I have to say, before this year, I never really realized how important Christmas was to me. I suppose I’d always taken for granted the time I had with friends and family during the season. And even though I thought the actual celebration of Christmas held little sentiments for me, I still found myself wiping away steaming hot tears as I sang along to “O, Holy Night” at an outdoor Christmas Eve sing-a-long.
As the night was only the second time I can recall crying in the past year or so (viewing cheesey movies exempted), I realized, that, yeah, Christmas is important to me. And that I don’t think I’ll want to be away from my loved ones in MO come Christmas again…
Side note…at the Christmas Day service I went to, I learned that “Away in the Manger” has two melodies. The Brits have one version, and the Yanks another. The church I was at chose the better one, of course.
(And I didn’t take any Christmas photos…so the above pic is a nice little holiday greeting from Elvis…taken at Graceland during my Christmas break last year.)
Still in Tripura…still alive…and just now able to find a cyber cafe.
Will write more soon…but just wanted to say Happy Holidays if you’re heading home already.
So drink some eggnog, kiss under the mistletoe, and have a funky, funky, Christmas for me.
…heart, Jayna.
How did you spend International Human Rights Day (10 Dec)?
I was at the Human Rights Concert here in Shillong. The whole reason I’d gone was to see a sort-of famous singer, Lou Majaw, who is well-known for both his Bob Dylan covers as well as his hot pants.
Sadly, though, Monday was a bit cold…and the concert started nearly 45 minutes late. After about four hours of sitting in the FREEEEEEZING cold, I called it a night before Mr. Majaw even made it on stage for his performance. (I wonder if it was too cold for his hot pants?)
The performances ranged from not-so-great to really good (but, yes, they were all performing for a good cause, so I shouldn’t judge…yada, yada, yada).
I filmed a few bits of the performances…I have a feeling you might recognize a few of the songs from the night, too…
10 points for the most number recognized!
When I studied abroad, I was insanely jealous of my fellow Americans who had early-year birthdays and got to celebrate in Oz. I thought of making up an “Australia birthday” just to get one myself.
But as you might recall, when the idea of spending my birthday away was actually creeping near, I was getting a bit sad. It’s not that I’ve had amazing birthdays back home. In fact after years of disappointing (and even a couple horrible/tragic) birthdays, I started planning my own birthday get togethers (which works out quite well…you always get your favorite kind of cake then).
Being abroad, though, I didn’t plan anything and just figured I’d have a day like any other. When the big day came, though…well, I have to say it was a pretty darn fabulous day. Right at midnight four of us had a glass of the banana wine from the local wine festival (and I got a few fab presents, too!). After a good night’s sleep, I came to the office for a round of “happy birthdays” as everyone made a point to stop by and say so.
Then for lunch, the girls had made a great big meal (all veg, of course). For dinner, we went to the Team Leader’s house and had another homemade meal (her nieces, too, remembered to make it all veg) while listening to the soothing sounds of Sean Kingston, No Doubt, and Nelly Furtado (her nieces, too, requested I bring my computer for music). My seat at the dinner table was pretty fab, too. And really made me feel a bit like being at home; it gave me a full view of the family calendar for 2008, which starts off with a picture of St. Louis and the Arch.
And even though my ever-so-thoughtful sis knew to send birthday wishes on my big day, I of course got the birthday call from my parents the next day. If you know the folks, this is no big surprise. They hardly remember to call before midnight on my birthday when I’m in Cali…expecting them to remember it AND the time change when I’m in India, well, that’s just too much. I attribute it to the fact that there’s not that whole painful-birth memory to etch the day in their minds. Still, they remembered to call when it was December 5th in Missouri.
When I finally made it to onto the Internet on that next day, I got to get lots of the happy-birthday e-mails and posts, too.
Yeah…fab day in all.
And if you’d like to see them making me birthday roti…
