More unexpected surprises, the strange meeting and the 20th century

I had my hair braided this past weekend and in payment I gave Deanne a fair trade bracelet made in India that I had gotten online from CARE2.com. She asked if it was made in the U.S., and I honestly didn’t have the heart to tell her no since most everything is made in China (and cheap) these days in the U.S. It’s the sad truth, isn’t it? Trust me, I try very hard to buy what I can made in the U.S. or buy fair trade goods vs. Made in China (or whatever), but sadly, there’s not much out there left to buy made in the good ol’ USA.

Sunday night, I was online chatting with a few friends when Jeromie comes into the room. He tells me that he has a surprise for me and to come out. I went into the kitchen, and he told me to look on the table. In a small, black plastic bag there were…wait for it…wait for it…2 cans of PEPSI! Wahoo! I danced a jig and jumped up and down because I was so happy and excited. I immediately opened one and felt the savor of my first African Pepsi, and it was awesome! I know Georgette, Akobie and Jeromie must’ve thought I was crazy, but I didn’t care!

Monday morning, Georgette pushed Boo Boo (in his walker) into the bedroom where he headed straight for my bed. The first thing that interested him was my round hair brush. Now this kid HATES it when anyone combs his hair. He picked up my brush and looked at it real seriously as if trying to make out exactly what it was, and then he started to wave it around. I took it from him briefly to brush his hair to see how he would react. It apparently felt good because he smiled and closed his eyes as I fluffed his hair. I gave it back to him to play with, and he must’ve hung on to it for about 20 minutes. I never would’ve guessed a hair brush could be so entertaining for a baby, but I made sure to get a picture of him with it while sucking his thumb. With Boo Boo walking everywhere and getting into everything, I have a feeling he’s going to be called “Boo Boo, No No!” very soon…

I soon left the apartment and was trying to find a taxi heading to the next taxi stop. Of course the taxi driver that stopped asked me how much I was going to pay him. I laughed at him and said in French, “No thank you. See ya.” What a jerk! I managed to catch the next taxi, and on the way to the orphanage, we passed a store front where I guess the person who was running the store was sitting outside on a toilet that was for sale. Man, I wish I could’ve gotten a shot of that!

When I entered the orphanage wall door, Gaelle and Champion both ran out the orphanage door, down the steps and right into my arms for great big hugs. I nearly fell over they rushed me so quickly. They’re huge welcome was a great way to start out the day though! When we got inside, I sat down and Gaelle immediately helped herself to sitting right in between my legs. Soon after I sat down, there was a meeting with some folks and Solange. I could understand some of the conversation, but not all of it. After the meeting, everyone who spoke in the meeting then stood up. They all said a prayer in unison, and then each broke off into their own prayer-aloud. It was quite strange watching and listening to all the mixed prayers, then everyone grew quiet and the man in the group said a few words. When he finished, they all again prayed aloud and this happened about three more times. All the while during the meeting and praying, I was sitting, listening and observing with Gaelle in my lap and Champion to my left trying to keep them both quiet while they listened to my iPod. After about an hour of the meeting and near the end of prayers, would you believe that Gaelle fell asleep with her head on my left arm?!

I often feel like I’m in the 20th century here. Last night, the electricity went off and on every few minutes, which it does that on occasion. It’s not so bad during the day when you have light, but it’s not so good at night or on days when it’s really hot out and you need the fans on so badly. Today, there wasn’t any water at the apartment until this evening. When I went to the market tonight, every single item had to be brought up on the monitor and then each item scanned for down a row by the cashier’s eyes (and there could be more than 10 items by the same brand). I was thinking, “Dear gawd! Someone seriously needs to introduce these people to bar code scanning!” At a gas station I go into on occasion, I noticed the other day that the cashier keeps inventory of what’s bought in a notebook. Every item that is bought for the day has a tick mark by it in the book. Craziness!

At dinner tonight, we ate our salads and our bread. Then we moved on to the main course, which was chicken mixed with vegetables. I happened to get a chicken leg and was trying to get to the bottom of the bowl to get more veggies to go with my chicken leg. Suddenly, there it was-the unexpected. I blinked, looked at it, turned my head away and then turned my head back to look at it again to see if maybe I was incorrect as to what it was exactly that I saw. Nope, it was what it was-a chicken foot attached to the leg in the dinner bowl. I quickly put the top back on the pot and tried not to think about it…