Siku Kuu

Today I woke up to the sounds of Siku Kuu!  The mosque next door had an extra long prayer time and sermon this morning, and I woke up excited to spend the day with some friends.  I’ve mentioned before that there is a Peace Corp worker, Melissa, living here on the Island.  You’ve probably also heard me mention that she is awesome and I am so grateful she is here!  She is always down for going visiting with me, or going on an adventure to explore a new part of the Island with me.  Today, we decided to walk around town to greet friends and neighbors on their special day.  Our visiting began with a stop at Mariam’s house.  When we arrived, the little girls had new braids in their hair, and new dresses, jewelry, and make-up on.  At 10am, they already had candy in their mouths, as well.  On Siku Kuu, the kids go around asking for candy (kind of like Halloween) and they eat lots of sweets throughout the entire day.  We were given cake, doughnuts, and cookies when we arrived, so we kindly ate as much as we could.  We stayed and chatted for a while and then started walking home.  Mariam sent us away with more cake, doughnuts, and cookies to eat and share.  On the way home, we saw our friend, Omar, who waved us down to come to his workshop.  When we went, he invited us to his home for lunch.  We thanked him and told him another friend that we teach with already had invited us to lunch.  He begged us to at least come stop by and see his wife and greet her on this special day, so we did.  When we first walked in, Omar gave us bananas.  Then his wife brought out juice, and more cake, doughnuts, and cookies.  By that time, I was already stuffed.  But what do you do when you are stuffed here?  Keep eating… So that’s exactly what we did.  We left Omar’s house with a bag full of bananas and headed to lunch.  We had lots of pilau (a type of rice), which was so delicious!  We enjoyed a full meal and great hospitality- as usual.

Around 3pm, we headed home completely stuffed, yet completely satisfied. A day full of friends and food.  Those two things are hard to beat.

I definitely didn’t need to eat any more today, but we had already made plans to eat dinner in one of the bigger towns on the Island with the Browns and their visitors tonight.  We ate on the rooftop of a hotel overlooking the ocean.  The company and sunset were both incredible, and there were hundreds of flying foxes over our heads at one point as the sun went down.

After dinner, we walked through the busy town where people were EVERYWHERE.  Kids were running around from all the sugar they had throughout the day, parents were hanging out with friends, and everyone was happy, happy, happy!  The celebration will continue tomorrow, the next day, and we heard it will even continue through Saturday.  Like I’ve said before, these folks love to party!

Siku Kuu Njema!