So I Crashed This Baptism

Well, not really crashed. These women at a preschool I started hanging out at (bc children are the future etc but mostly bc we sing songs in french and my french is comically heinous), told me that I should swing by.

So I did.

And knew no one.

It’s one thing to crash a baptism. It’s another thing entirely to be the only white person at a baptism of 75 Burkinabé. There’s no hope whatsoever at blending in. So I own this and start greeting the crap out of everyone. Eventually I’m directed into a room where (oh thank god) pre school tantie is hanging out (note: “tantie” is a way to address a woman older than you with respect. At preschools, all women teachers are “tantie” and men are “ton ton”)

I was then informed I showed up just in time to eat (YASSSSSSSSS) so I end up sharing a bowl of rice, macaroni, cabbage, and a sheep’s leg with three other tanties.

Let’s talk about this rice for a minute. It was cooked in hellfire. But a special kind of hellfire where heat is retained for HOURS after it’s been elevated from the circle where all of the lusty peeps are hanging out, through purgatory, and into the bowl we were eating out of.

Yet another digression:
Most of the time, I use silverware. But I happen to be a particularly bougie volunteer who hangs out with particularly bougie Burkinabé. On the rare occasion I eat rice with my hands, here’s how it goes down:

1) scoop rice out of the bowl with your right hand (the left hand is reserved for less savory activities)
2) form rice into a ball using squishing/ rotating techniques with your fingers
3) eat rice ball out of your fingers (or, if your me, shove rice ball into your trap because apparently, you haven’t seen food in days- or at least since this morning)
4) repeat

Now, not only am I bougie but (kind of related) I’m a delicate flower who simply cannot function is times of duress, or when faced with rice cooked by Kahleesi’s Dragons (Khaleesi?? Sharon if you read this, help me out). So. Every time I go in for the scoop, I whimper even though my insides are screaming “YOU ARE STRONGER THAN THIS BOWL OF RICE. GET IN THERE MARTINEZ AND STOP BITCHING”

One of the tanties notices, takes pity on me and starts removing balls of rice, blowing on them, and giving them to me to eat like the baby bird that I am.

I later noticed a mother doing this with her 2 year old child. Whelp.

After we eat we all go home to rest and are coming back in a few hours for dancing and would I be coming back?

For dancing? Duh.

Roll back to the party post rice coma and jump in the circle dance. Here’s how dancing works:

1) you all dance around in a conga line that eventually turns into a circle
2) the beat speeds up. That’s your cue to rush the stage
3) the song ends, clear the dance floor until they start singing the same song for the nteenth time and start that conga line again.

Occaisionally, you will be met with what I like to call the “whoo-girl tantie”. This woman will grab your hand, raise it above your head and yell “WHOOOOOO” like a drunk college girl. This is hilarious bc usually this woman is about 60 or 80 years old.

After busting a move (and busting everyone’s gut with my fancy footwork) I head home to feed my animals and sweat myself to sleep.

And that’s what I did last Sunday.