Holidays and such in Congo...

This Christmas Eve and Christmas we broke a few traditions! First of all, Christmas Eve, we didn't get to have a candlelight service at Church. That was pretty disappointing to all of us, but my dad couldn't get the committee to let him have a service:-( Apparently not many people wanted to have a service. We had our traditional potato leek soup (yay!) for dinner, and rolls...:-) YUM! Then we all sat around and ate some homemade ice cream and each opened one gift (that's one of our old traditions). Sometimes we try to open the smallest looking gift on Christmas Eve so we can save the bigger ones for C. Day! ;-) This year the power went off before dinner was ready... but only for like 2 minutes, thankfully!!

In the morning we gathered in our pjs in the living room to open our stocking. Mom and Dad came out in their matching Congolese shirts and served us some juice! We watched (and videod) dad opening his stocking because he always has the funniest reactions and is always excited about no matter what is put in his stocking.... and then we all opened ours at the same time. How we usually do it. Breakfast followed, and we enjoyed homemade EGG NOG (thanks to Sarah!), and sweet rolls (another tradition broken-- normally we have baked apples, but this is Congo). Dad was eating a hard boiled egg and was getting quite frustrated trying to crack it open! He's always funny trying to do his eggs. After breakfast, we opened gifts... and this time mom said we wouldn't try to open in order of age. We would just open one at a time, whatever random order we wanted! But we still pretty much took turns. We don't like opening all of them all at once because it's fun to watch people's reactions. Especially when people are opening a gift you gave! All the stuff my family gave me was really neat, and probably my favorite gift i got was from my mom -- She bought some zebra print material and took it to a purse shop where they made it into a messenger bag for me!! And a matching one for Colleen-- they're fun! Very African :-)
I gave my mom some homemade stationery--like thank-you cards-- and she loved them, but while we were passing them around (after we had just said that they were from when me & my sisters made cards at thanksgiving), my dad saw them and goes "Oh, we're these made by some handicaps?" ahahahaha! We had a good long laugh about that....:-) We decided to have our christmas dinner later, like at 7pm because at 2:00 we were invited to a Christmas caroling slash christmas cookie get together at the #2guy's house in the US Embassy. He and his wife were really friendly, and we sang all the Christmas carols we knew around the piano! It was pretty fun -- then we had cheese and crackers, cookies, cakes.... drinks.... then at home we had to get the food altogether and ate finally a while later. Surprisingly our African turkey was some of the best turkey ever, and although the sweet potatoes i made were a lot dryer than normal, we had most of the same foods we normally have every Christmas.

Christmas flew by and soon it was New Years. On New Years Eve, Theo went to the youth group party to show some support and represent us, and Christiana went out with a few singles. The rest of us went to Elaeis for dinner. I had a tasty Hawaiian chicken salad... but why am I talking about all these details? Not really the point. Yet. We all had good dinners and then headed to this restaurant called Chateau Margot which is known for their amazing desserts. They were booked for a party, but they said "If you don't mind being all by yourselves, we have a private room inside you can eat in!" .... did we mind? NOT AT ALL! So we Took the chance and were shown to this room with a big table and big, nice leather chairs.... pretty blue walls, a few big paintings,...and AC (always a big plus) .... Our server was SUCH a sweet lady. Very polite, you didn't feel awkward while she was in the room because she didn't stare at us... and she was very formal and you knew she had been trained well. We ordered a few coffees, and they came in teeny cups on their own indiv. trays with a very small cake beside. Then we ordered our desserts-- me and mom got Creme Brulee, Dad got some creme filled pastries with ice cream and chocolate sauce, and sarah & colleen got Mousse au Chocolat. They came beautifully displayed.... presentation was gorgeous! ANd they tasted even better than they looked. if that's possible. haha! DELISH.
We got home around 9:30...then watched some Alias, paused it at midnight, broke open some sparkling cider and toasted! Sarah did a little dance... then we went back to Alias, and then bed!
New Years Day we had this Congolese guy pick us up with a mini van to take us to thie place called Gandayala, a picnic spot on a river that flows into/out of (?) the Congo River. The van we squished in smelled of fish because it had been used to transport some people who must have been carrying fish!! Ew... but anyway, about 1.5hrs later we got to the spot and realized my friend Chaima was behind us with her family! WHat a coincidence -- she was picnic-ing there too! ... We planned on staying the night there because my dad thought he had reserved the cabin for the night. When we looked at the cabin, there were only 2 bedrooms, and including the 2 couches downstairs, only 5 beds (just one was a double bed). We had been promised enough for 7 people and it was supposed to cost $50. The guy there wanted $100, and he didn't even have our reservation!! We were fed up, and decided it probably wasn't worth the money so we'd just picnic and have a boat ride! I hung out with Chaima til she had to eat lunch, and then we ordered food from the restaurant. Plantains, chicken, shish-ka-bobs, fries... expensive, but not bad! Then we went on the motor boat -- only our family. It was so neat!! Took a 30min cruise upstream, they let us get out and swim, then we went back.... it was so relaxing and fun! -- And quite beautiful!! And we could actually took pictures, which was GREAT! After the boat ride, we just hung out on the shore and grass, waiting for our ride to come back which wasn't coming til 6... so we had 3 hours. We took naps, played cards, and just talked and it was fun! Very relaxing as i said about the boat...the whole thing was relaxing. Even though there were some pesty people who wanted to sell us wicker furniture or charge us to take a picture of the baby crocodile they were carrying around.... or to play guitar & sing (even though we kept saying PLEASE GO AWAY!!) and get some money from us. That part was just kinda funny! Oh Congo.
On the way home, we sung songs from Disney movies and other musical the whole way back! it was probably pretty annoying for our driver, but great fun for us! What a good New Years Day!! Not much comes close to beating good family time. I loooove my family!!