{"id":1963,"date":"2013-03-09T20:59:59","date_gmt":"2013-03-09T20:59:59","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/?p=1963"},"modified":"2013-03-10T18:21:32","modified_gmt":"2013-03-10T18:21:32","slug":"a-long-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/2013\/03\/09\/a-long-day\/","title":{"rendered":"A Long Day"},"content":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was an incredibly long and tiring day. \u00a0Cecil invited me to a big cultural event at a local village. \u00a0Joel had a meeting in Dakar all day that left him coming home at 11 pm in the evening. \u00a0Katie was home with the kids in a day that ended with her breaking down the door to get into our house. \u00a0We all had quite the adventure, but we all ended the day feeling like the adventures were worth it. \u00a0 I don’t know why, but it seems like the times that are the most difficult and draining are the ones where I learn the most culture and build the strongest relationships. \u00a0If would be nice if we could get the results without the adventure, but it just doesn’t seem to work that way. \u00a0 Although words can only tell so much, here is my attempt at a small picture of my day.<\/p>\n

Morning:<\/strong>\u00a0We arrived at the village at 10 (the ceremony was supposed to start at 9). \u00a0Cecil and I walk around to do some visits in the village before attending the ceremony. \u00a0This is a small village, but they were about to host around 1500 people and supposedly the presidents wife (who never actually showed up) so you can imagine what a big day this was for them. \u00a0Everyone was hurrying around making preparations. \u00a0The women cooked, the men set up tents and chairs, trucks of water were dumped on the sand to make it less dusty, the sound system was installed and connected to batteries (since there is no electricity) and the booths of arts and crafts were arranged. \u00a0Slowly, buses\u00a0began to show up\u00a0full of women dressed in their finest. \u00a0It was incredible to watch it all come together before my eyes.<\/p>\n

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It was fun to see the sea of colors<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And fancy clothes<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The woman from Dakar all had matching outfits<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The craft displays were also quite colorful<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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All were carefully arranged and organized<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Afternoon: <\/strong>Most people were there by 12, but one delegation from Dakar was still missing.\u00a0 So the next hours were filled with waiting and the way to wait in Africa is with drums and dancing – 3 hours of dancing to be precise.\u00a0 Finally they decided to begin eating while still waiting.\u00a0 300 women come cascading out with bowls of food and 6 people gather around each bowl to eat.\u00a0 It was quite an amazing site.<\/p>\n

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All of this food was cooked over a fire...so hard to imagine!<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Yet there was enough food for everyone<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Young and old all gathered around a bowl and ate<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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As we waited for the ceremony to start the dancing continued<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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The drummers kept the beat going<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And they danced<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And danced some more<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Evening<\/strong>:\u00a0 The ceremony that was supposed to start at 9 am finally started at 6 pm.\u00a0 It was filled with more dancing, skits, and speeches.\u00a0 At 8 we finally left to wait on the side of the road until we found a bus heading back into town.<\/p>\n

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My favorite part of the day was a cultural skit in the cermeony<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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They demonstrated the 10 most important aspect of their culture<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Cecil was glowing as she described what was happening in each skit<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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There was marriage<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Farming<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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And SO MUCH More<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Worth The Wait<\/strong><\/p>\n

There were times in the morning that I wondered if it was worth it to be there. \u00a08 hours of waiting! \u00a0But then I remembered that it wasn’t about the ceremony. \u00a0It was about the chance to be there with Cecil through the events that were important to her life and allowing her to share those with me. \u00a0The day was hot, dusty, loud and long, but if I hadn’t gone I would have missed out on so much!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Yesterday was an incredibly long and tiring day. \u00a0Cecil invited me to a big cultural event at a local village. \u00a0Joel had a meeting in Dakar all day that left him coming home at 11 pm in the evening. \u00a0Katie was home with the kids in a day that ended with her breaking down the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":830,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2545],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-1963","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-updates-and-news","7":"entry"},"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/830"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1963"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1963\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1963"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1963"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/joel-mcmartin\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1963"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}