La Pâques

My family will be relieved to know that Easter in Senegal is much the same as our Easter. In a nutshell, my host mom's whole family and some of my dad's friends came over around lunch time and stayed until about 11 PM eating and drinking. My mom has 4 sisters and a brother, so there were lots of aunts fussing in the kitchen and cousins running around. And as usual, my mom made enough food for about 4 times as many people as actually came, so we'll be eating chicken and vermicelli for about a week. At least we don't have to stuff ourselves with white rice! We also got to eat pork, a rare treat in this country of non-pork-eating Muslims. I don't really know what else to say because it's just like the family gatherings I'm used to, except instead of our family's usual gin and tonics, we drink this fabulous coconut punch with home-made alcohol that my mom makes.


[This is me and my host mom]

There is always a feriée (a day where everything is closed) the day after religious holidays, so the Catholics can recuperate from all the drinking, and I guess the Muslims just pray.