Christmas and Chicken

Of all the Christmas' I've experienced this one has to be the most unique. Nothing crazy, but different.

On the eve of Christmas, I attended a Catholic mass. It was a nice, but slightly goofy and confusing service. The entire mass, the priest would flip-flop between local language (Olof) and English. Sometimes, he would be speaking English for a couple minutes before I would realize it. The music was cool - many of the songs were traditional, but were performed in an African style with djembes and other percussion instruments. Communion started off a little on the chaotic side, as Gambians don't really 'do' lines. Everyone rushed to receive communion at once. Over the course of a couple minutes, order was restored and lines were formed. Perhaps the most bizarre, yet appropriate part of the service was at the very end, when the priest broke into 'Happy Birthday Jesus' complete with the extended 'How old are you now?' verse.

I spent the day of Christmas with a bunch of other PCVs enjoying air-conditioning, television, fudge, chili, meatloaf, guacamole, mashed taters, chocolate cake, cokes, more fudge, collard green gumbo, and ice at our friendly PC Administrator's (Patti) bungo. It was quite a spread. We played Scrabble and Crossfire! and watched Planet Earth on TV.

Later in the evening a few volunteers decided to go to an open mic night in the touristy SeneGambia area. There was a huge, rowdy crowd of Gambians trying to push their way into the venue. Each time someone got out of line, some security guy would beat them away with a huge leather belt that looked like he won it at a wresting match. There were a few fireworks on display, so we stuck around, but ditched the place shortly afterward. The night ended with us dancing at some club, which is about the last thing I ever expected to be doing on Christmas, but then again, I never expected to be in Africa on Christmas either.

Now I'm going to change to subject to a 'sexy' chicken. In addition to goats and sheep, there are lots of 'sisewo' running around my compound. Most of the time, they're part of the background and I don't really pay much mind to them. But, there is this one orangish-gold colored hen that runs around that I absolutely cannot stop staring at. To be truthful, there are more impressive hens than this one, but there is something about this 'chicken next door' that catches my eye. Weird.

--Junkung