Bonne arrive Tantie Carole

I woke up Friday morning hearing the screams of girls being circumcised in my head. I shot up and looked around, only to find Ami and Sabine staring at me thinking I had finally gone mad. I assured them everything was fine and so the most bizarre weekend of my life began. I didn't have to work Friday because it was the 4th of July and since my NGO is funded by the US government, they observe the same holidays as we do. Which was really good for me because I am so beat. At the same time Tantie Carole came over for the weekend to meet me. She is definitely really strange/insane. She is Amed's mother and Liza's sister and she spent 0 time with either of them. All she wanted to do was talk to me, sit with me, go places with me. Normally I would have been annoyed, but she is literally a character from Harry Potter. She talks with a shrill voice and is constantly bouncing around saying quirky things. She actually really reminds me of Mrs. Weasley because she will scream at Amed to go do something, and then turn around and be rosy to me not a second later. She also would whisk me away to nearby villages so I could meet her million friends. I humored her by telling her she was so popular, but actually I could tell that everyone thought she was crazy and were just nice to her because she wouldn't go away. She is also obsessed with babies, like someone else I know and if we passed anyone with a baby she would smother it and ask the mom if we could borrow it for a while. Borrow it for a while?!??! Africans are nice people, but they are not going to let a complete stranger borrow their child, psycho. So yeah that was extremely entertaining. Except then she told me I had to go to church with her on Saturday. I don't understand why everyone wants me to go to church with them but OK. I actually was not feeling it at all so I brought Roxanne along with me. I knew she would be tired/bored by the end and so Carole would be obligated to take us home right after. But unfortunately that plan backfired because Carole got invited to a party afterward and made us come with. Apparently party trumps children's needs. I actually I am really glad she made us go though because it was extremely hilarious. When we arrived everyone was like, holy white woman, and these photographers came out of nowhere and started taking pictures of me. I felt like a celebrity taking Roxanne by the hand and walking to our seats trying to avoid the cameras. I actually managed to get my hands on one of the pictures so I can show you all when I get back. But we finally got situated and all the sudden Tantie Carole gets up and leaves. She doesn't come back until 30 minutes later and she has collected 2 babies and has brought them back to our seats. She commands me to take one of them and says "I want this one, she's cuter". Ok I'll take the ugly baby off your hands. She was not ugly at all though, she had huge eyes and this amazing smile. Although at first she was scared of Roxanne and I and would not answer any of our questions. (She was not an infant, she was about 2, so she could legit talk, haha). Roxanne shouted, WHAT'S YOUR NAME?!?!?!? about 10 times while the baby just stared at her. Although after a while she got used to us and we found out her name was Leslie. An hour later she all the sudden jumped off my lap and ran away. Me and Roxanne looked at each other and Roxanne said, "She's a little Bandite isn't she?" (I can't really translate Bandite, it literally means robber but you call someone a Bandite if they don't go along with what you say). It was alright though because it looked like they were starting to serve food so naturally Roxanne and I bolted to the serving line. As we reclaimed our seats and were eating/watching Carole dance around the grass like a crazy woman we saw little Leslie with a Fanta in her hand (Fanta is super popular here) and a completely orange face, running around the dance floor aka vacant grassy area. Through the course of the party we saw her run around with various drinks in her hand. She would stop dead in her tracks, stare at me and Roxanne, give us the biggest smile I've ever seen, take a huge gulp of Fanta and spill it all over herself, and then run away in a crooked line like she was extremely drunk. She's definitely going to be an alcoholic when she gets older.
Well it turned out Carole dragged us to the party because her love interest invited her, but he had left so she saw no reason to stay and told us we had to go. So we thankfully jumped out of our chairs and ran to the taxi that Carole had already hailed. That night Franc came over with two French EPs and they were really great.What was even greater was that I actually understood the conversation that was going on. Yesss. Although they came over at 11 pm and I was so tired so I didn't really contribute to the conversation.

Sunday was interesting. Roxanne and I are so close now I don't even want to think about leaving. I think what really did it was Sunday morning we were all watching Dora the Explorer and Junior starting hitting Roxanne for no reason. Normally she would yell Stop over and over and then go cry to her mom but this time I got up, took her in my arms and yelled at Junior to stop hitting my baby, and then I took her over to the couch to sit with me. After that she wanted to be by me all the time. If I would leave the house to go by a calling card she would come with, if I ate dinner she would demand to eat at the same time. And then Sunday afternoon her friends came over and all hell broke loose. Her friends are SUPER adorable and they are obsessed with me and always try to jump on me and hug me the entire time. But that particular Sunday Roxanne was not willing to share me with her friends and she started telling them if they were going to play with me they had to go home. Then Junior came over and hit her and she started screaming and ran into her room and sobbed. Apparently she was yelling my name over and over but I didn't hear her and when she emerged from her room and saw me playing with her friends she snubbed all of us and retreated to the patio where Sabine was preparing lunch. We all followed her and heard her explain to Sabine that I didn't come when she called and instead played with her friends and she was angry at me. But when she saw me sit down on the patio she jumped on me and wouldn't talk to her friends. Sooo she is mad at me, but only wants to be by me and not her friends. Okkkk. So she made them all go home so she could play with me alone.

This morning (Monday) we watched Dora together again, and ps- in the US Dora speaks English and teaches Spanish words, but in France she speaks French and teaches English words. I thought that was interesting. And we sang all the songs together and when it was time for me to go to work she sobbed and wouldn't let go of my leg until Ahmed dragged her off. I don't want to think about what she's going to do Sunday.