I know what you're thinking: "Erica, isn't the song 'let it snow'?" Yes, the traditional song uses the word snow, but unfortunately that doesn't really translate here. Literally, it does not translate. Last week I was at IST (our In Service Training to regroup after the first 3 months at site) and part of our training are some language classes. In Temne class we learned the Sierra Leonean national anthem in Temne which gave us the great idea of trying to learn some Christmas carols in Temne! Our first one was "Let it Snow." As our teacher (Sallu) was translating our teacher paused at the word snow with a somewhat quizzical look. Not surprisingly, they have never seen snow in Sierra Leone, (I don't think Sierra Leone even got snow during the ice age, that's how hot it is here) hence the confusion with the word. The closest he could translate snow was in to 'dew.' So, we had a group of white kids singing "let it dew, let it dew, let it dew" at the top of our lungs. I found it rather amusing. (Side note on the snow/dew translation: one of my teachers came to school the other day and asked me if I saw the snow that morning. Excuse me, what? SNOW? Something definitely got lost in translation, and it turns out we just had a little dew that morning. It was rather cruel though, for a split second I thought I was actually going to see snow.) Our second carol was Jingle Bells and we hit a hurdle at the first word. Sallu wasn't familiar with the word 'dashing' so we told him it means to go quickly. The Temne translation is "kone lemp lemp" which literally means 'to go fast.'
Also, wanted to say Merry Christmas to everyone! It doesn't really feel like Christmas to me since it's 95 degrees outside, which is probably good because otherwise I think I'd be painfully homesick. As is, I miss everyone, but I managed to not spend the day in the fetal position bawling my eyes out. :-) Ok, so cultural stuff about Christmas here: first, Christmas seems to be a pretty big holiday here, which I thought was pretty interesting because over half of my community is Muslim. They have their own holidays that they celebrate, but usually the Christians don't join in. Christmas, however, is an all inclusive event. The Christmas Day event is the outing, where everyone goes to the beach on the river and hangs out. Leading up to Christmas I had images of a nice picnic with everyone socializing. Wrong. Turns out it's just an excuse for everyone to get drunk and dance. Kinda like the celebrating Cinco de Mayo in the U.S. So not quite the chance to connect with my community that I was anticipating. Oh well. Other than that not a lot of Christmas traditions here. I went to midnight mass on Christmas Eve at the Catholic mission. At least 60% of the people fell asleep during the sermon. Always a good sign.
In other Sierra Leone news, I've been away from my village for the past few weeks. First was the trip to Bo for IST, which was desperately needed. It was really really nice for me to see other PCVs and talk about the things that are making me constantly frustrated. I feel much more ready to go back to my village after talking through some of these issues with other people. And just spending some time with other Americans was I think a big help in recharging my batteries. After IST I went to the Banana Islands for 2 days. It was amazing. Super secluded, but really beautiful and the guesthouse we stayed in was fairly nice (at least for us, who are all now used to Peace Corps standards of living). I took pictures, but unfortunately they are on my high quality disposable camera. I took my digital camera, but it ran out of battery. Good thing I had a back up. Hopefully next time I get in to Freetown or Makeni I'll have a chance to develop them.
My next goal is to upload some pictures for y'all to see, so I'm off to go check that off my list! Hope everyone had an amazing Christmas and looking forward to the new year!
Sending all my love.
