Sunday, September 19, 2010

The Non-Baptism

Today little baby boy turned 8 days old which means that my family was supposed to through him a little baptism party. I had been asking all week to make sure that the baptism was today so that I could mentally prepare myself for a Senegalese party and would have a gift ready and waiting. Deenba assured me that it was today as did my mom, Khady, and Jeenaba herself. I thought I had this whole baptism thing under control. I should really know better than that by now.

The early morning signs were good. Extended family members arrived at our house in formal attire and there was a lot of yelling, but everyone in my family was still wearing every day clothes and going about their normal routines. Lunch, per usual, was ridiculously late and not lunch at all since it occurred at 4pm, but it was delicious and included chicken. I was still confused at this point because no major cooking was going on. Usually I'm asked to peel potatoes when we have a big fete because they hate using my peeler, but, grudgingly, do admit that I can peel potatoes faster than anyone else. The confusion mounts as everyone goes to sleep during a power outage.

Except for the complete lack of food things start to look up again when the baby's great-grandma appears and shaves it's head and gives it a bath. That, apparently, was all the baptism that baby was going to get. I walked into the kitchen to find Deenba making the usual millet based Sunday meal and cornered her to ask her about this baptism. She looks at me and calmly explains that we had a small baptism with just the family today because Jeenaba is going to wait until after Tabaski (which will take place a week before Thanksgiving) and have a joint baptism/ wedding. Well, thanks for all of that info while I asked questions all week! It is good news that Jeenaba is marrying baby daddy who's actually a really nice guy. I just wonder where they are going to live because my house is definitely at capacity! It will sad to see Jeenaba go and Deenba is going to have a huge amount of work - if that's what's going to happen. Obviously, I have no idea what's actually going to happen.


The best part about today? I totally forgot to ask what the baby's name is so I'm still calling it "baby."

3 comments:

  1. Hmmmmmm a bath and haircut. That's much better than your brother's 8th day!!!!!!!

    Very, very relieved to hear about Jeeneba's impending nuptials.

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  2. Hi, Alyssa....The baby-baptism story is cute.
    Who knew, after 8 days...a bath and a haircut?!
    Your gift to 'baby' is really sweet...I can just picture the
    pop-up mosquito-net tent : )
    Love reading about your adventures.
    Take care....
    libbie

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  3. At least baby daddy is cool. Although I'd be about done with Senegalese Planning... I thought the South was bad

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