Palm Sunday

Palm Sunday usually doesn't mean much to me and since I'm living with a Muslim family, one would assume that it wouldn't mean much to them, but in the spirit of any holiday is a holiday we celebrate, my family celebrated Palm Sunday. I had been looking forward to today because we've been without water since I came back from Cape Verde and holidays are usually celebrated by the utility companies by actually providing service. And I was right. My mom obviously thought the same thing and therefore stayed up all night. She was still awake filling water jugs from the most pathetic trickle of water coming out of our spigot at 6:30am when I got up. I told her I would take over, but she doesn't trust me that much so I went to take a run and she locked me out of the front gate. Pounding on the door ensued until Awa came to open it for me.

Other than the luxury of having some water and a day full of electricity we also had a delicious lunch to celebrate. Whenever there's a holiday and "a lunch you will like," in the words of a female cook are uttered it means we don't eat lunch until old people are eating their Early Bird Special. Today was also a weird day since Jeenaba and Abdou were celebrating Palm Sunday with Thomsir, baby daddy, and his family... who are also not Christian. Anyway, that means that all of the cleaning fell on poor, giantly pregnant Awa while my Aunt Numbe cooked lunch. Numbe has been hanging around more than usual since her daughter, also named Awa, is out current "vacation maid."

Rice and chicken with crudites (finely chopped vegetables that are steamed and covered in vinegar) was on the menu for lunch. Numbe was cooking all day. Literally. I took a run, cleaned by room, uploaded a ton of pictures onto facebook, worked on an application, helped cut vegetables, took a shower, and watched an episode of the Amazing Race before we ate lunch at 4pm. Regardless, it was tasty and we had some watermelon for dessert!

Khady is really sick right now which meant that she wasn't helping the other adult women nor was she rangling Ahmed and little Awa so they bothered me. All day. I thought Khady was just dehydrated because she was complaining of a mysterious headache after pulling water all day yesterday and not actually drinking any of it, but she's been MIA all day today trying to recover. My favorite part about this was the "sick" outfit she emerged in to collect her lunch. The tightest pair of painted on jeans I've seen her wear and then a completely sheer caftan with no bra. How is that comfortable? Khady's lack of supervision meant that the kids were all over me.

Ahmed and I have a very defined set of unspoken rules that govern my personal space and the lies I tell him to get him to go away. It really is a beautiful relationship. Little Awa doesn't know any of these rules and is incredibly curious and precocious. Today she wiped open my door after I explicitly told her I was changing. I saw an expression flash across Ahmed's face that said "Oh my God, she's not going to give me presents and candy anymore!" I had to get my stern face on with Awa after the door opening incident but she didn't really get it because she continued to be really annoying. It mostly bothered me because she kept touching me all over and she has a super nasty and giant staph infection that I really do not want to get. I like to keep my kid touching to a minimum aka Abdou and Ahmed only.

Apart from trying to hide from/ kill little Awa, Palm Sunday was quite nice. Everyone was really chill. We had some visitors who couldn't have cared less about me and I got to eat chicken and hoard some water in my room.