The wedding, my week, and everything else in between

My Henna!!! Its all faded now :( But these are pictures from when it was still very fresh :)

So the wedding was pretty cool. I got up early in the morning, cuz the bride and groom would be signing the book at 9 am. My mom had a new outifit made for that (it was yellow with purple details) and I wore my yellow dress. We drove around going first to the house (I think everybody had gathered there to drive to the signing together) then to some other place, back to the house, then we went to a different house (there were two weddings going on) then to a restaurant place where the brides and grooms danced. Afterwards, we went home to eat lunch, and change into our second outfits. After that we went back to my aunt's house, ate again (SUCH GOOD FOOD) My mom's little sister gave me a lesson on eating food with your hand. It was embarassing, and amusing >.< Its surprising how different our lives are. She's 16, a year younger than me, and she's already married, and has a little baby boy (He was 3 months old, and an adorable little fat thing).She was an expert at eating with her hands and taught me the proper "technique". She pushed at me to eat alot, so that I would get big, and marry soon. (She was also convinced that I needed to get married here.) Overall, she terribly sweet, even if she thought I was funny for wanting to get married in 10 years (or more, but I though it would be best if I didn't mention that) So anyways, after eating again, we went outside to the street, where people were playing music under a tarp, singing, or sitting and gossiping in chairs. At some point, people starting singing about the guests. The singers basically praised the family and person that they were singing about, and people would come up and do 1 (or both) of 2 things: they either raised their hand as if to say, Hey! They're singing about you! You're amazing Woohoo! and/or they gave the person money. Nene was the second person to be sung about, but she got the most money. I have the most popular mommy haha :) After a few minutes of singing, the music would speed up and everybody would get up and dance. Then, they would move on to another person. The dancing of the wedding reminded me of the Conga line, because basically, people line up and kinda start dancing in place until the person in front starts moving. She (it was all women, men were on the other side of the street talking) then danced up to the last person in line (everybody behind following her, of course) until a circle was made. And then people danced around or in the circle. The dancing didn't last too long, there was a lot of it, but the amount of dancing compared to singing and money-giving was tiiiny. We went home late in the evening (but before 6 still) and that was the wedding. There was a lot of driving going on it was crazy!!!

My dad came home last saturday (exactly a week ago) and its been great to have him back :D On Thursday, I went to an orphanage with the other Yes Abroaders, and we planted trees. I was expecting an orphanage like the one we visited in Kenya aka a large house building run by some very nice rich people and a lot of small kids running around. It was nothing like that at all. Instead, we walked into a small village like area, with a lot of small houses. In each house there lives a "Mom" and an "Aunt" (She basically helps the mom take care of the kids, and if the mom has to leave, takes over her role. Each family can have up to 10 kids. There were 150 kids total (more boys than girls, but only by a slim margin) and about 15 families. The smallest was just a baby, and the oldest are about 16. They have a school in the village, and a small playground, as well as a sports field. The man who runs the village is called "Dad" to all the kids. These are kids who have been abandonded or who's parents can't raise them for financial reasons. They're basically adopted by the families, and when they are older, they find their bioligical parents. The director says that when each kid turns 5, their history is told, because one must be able to accept their past to have a future. Anyhoo, after the tour, we planted trees out by the school (the holes were already dug, we kind just placed the trees in the hole, filled up the hole, and watered the trees. It was a pretty cool experience though. We met some Malian students who had studied in the US for a year, they were all darlings.

Thats it for now, I'll be sure to post something next week!!

Ciao!