Leaving Village

I moved out of village today. It was definitely really hard but also exciting to think about whats next. One of my friends was pregnant and I have been saying for months that I wanted to hold her baby before I left. Like so many women here, she didn't know how many months along she was so we weren't sure when she'd give birth. I thought I'd miss it but I got the call at dawn this morning that she gave birth to a big baby boy at 3 am! I biked over to see him and hold him for just a minute before I had to catch a bush taxi. This final event made me feel like it was time to go since it was the one thing I have been saying I wanted to do before leaving village.

I will write more once I get control of my emotions. In the meantime, I thought I'd share a list of gifts I got from villagers and folks I work with.

• 3 straw hats
• basket with leather cover
• pagnes (cloth used to make outfits)
• belt with bottle caps used for traditional Bissa dancing
• maraca
• leather sandals
• small checkerboard leather purse
• large checkerboard leather purse
• traditional woven fabric
• calabash (half a gourd used for drinking water or dolo)
• calabash spoon
• peanuts
• dried okra
• soumbala (local ball of spices)
• 2 sweet potatoes
• fabric tote bags
• chief's mask

By far, the coolest gift was the mask. A guy from my village made me a mask (his first time ever) of the village chief who died a few years ago. He was a very important figure and there has been a lot of problems finding a replacement so the gift is very meaningful here.

I also really love the belt for dancing since my best friend Dabre has been collecting bottle caps and working to make this for probably the past year. Well and of course we love dancing together!

The okra and peanuts were from my girls from the girls club. They have nothing but wanted to give me something (like so many of the gift givers) so were sharing what they have, what they cultivated themselves.