So life happens. I am here in Mali West Africa living. And life progresses as such, that hard part is getting used to the fact that time continues at home just as it does here. So Easter we spent in Uncle Joseph’s village Jigila (spelling?) On the way there, we saw an accident, this would be my first dead body apart from a funeral. It was an ambulance that had crashed, and one man was still alive and being pulled from the wreckage, the other was dead and was no longer whole. That was really hard to see, but I don’t have much to say about it. We were welcomed by all the elders in the village and were presented with red and white cola nuts and a chicken (mmmm). There was another village that had come to jigila to perform, so Saturday night we watched the other village perform and Sunday we got to see Jigila perform for us. Two very different performances. Jigila was more about masks and telling stories that way, and the other village was more acrobatic, but both were amazing. As you can see on my facebook, there is Easter fabric, and we all had outfits made with it and so do most Christians. I will never complain about pants again, I miss them too much. Lol. In Jigila the church and believers are small and few, compared to other places. We did stay up dancing celebrating the resurrection of our Lord Jesus. It was fun. I pittered out not feeling too well, but I love dancing Malian style. Earlier that day we went to the Baubau tree which the nonbelievers in the village sacrifice to once a year. This is a form of animism, there are a lot of other fetishes in the village, and things that mean things you would not think of. Like for instance I had a crocheted necklace that I was wearing before we went to Jigila. Uncle Joseph told me I should not wear it to his village because some people might think it was a fetish to protect against (goiters? ) weird stuff. The tree’s fruit when it is dry however tastes like dried apples, pretty good. And after that we bought a deer. Some people in some random Village heard that white people were in Jigila and they thought we might like to buy this deer they caught. Yep it was just too cute. We named him Sean the Faun. (with shoes on) Sean is doing pretty well.
This last weekend we went to Bamako for the 50th anniversary of the EEPM church. We sat through a 4 hour service, recounting history of the EEPM and a bunch of other stuff. (all not in English, but one part was) A normal church service here is like 3 hours long. Yeah! We stayed with uncle Sacko and got to sleep on his roof, outside under the starts, did I mention cold. We have become so accustomed to heat here that when it is like 80 degrees after a rain we sleep with a blanket on. Crazy stuff. Rain feels so good and it makes us shiver. Other than that I love it more here every day. And I miss home. I have 8 weeks or 2 months till I get back home and I want a tackle hug from everyone I see.
