Happy Holidays from Africa!

I am here at the Cotonou workstation and everyone is filing out, off to join friends and visitors in various beaches and cities throughout the country. There will still be a few of us in the workstation tonight and we're getting massages later today. I've been setting up my Pandora profile and listening to a lot of holiday music, but there's just something a bit...off...about the season here. It's the warmth, sure, but there's just no Christmas spirit in the air. Up north in Djougou, for example, there are a couple places with lights up, but for the most part, no one celebrates Christmas the way I'm used to. Back home, it's not really just a Christian holiday, it's an American holiday and means a lot more than just Jesus and presents...there's like an aura that fills the streets...and all the music and lights and tinsel and evergreen trees wrapped in stringed sparkles and golden ornaments? Man, that's just not here. Even in the South, where people are largely Christian and put up decorations around the cities, something is missing. There are cheap plastic toys with bright colors and lights everywhere, but it's almost like Benin has captured all the commercialism of American Christmas, but none of the goodwill toward others, love of humanity, doing nice things because it's the season for kindness, and just general Christmas spirit. Maybe it's just because it's still like 90 degrees outside? I don't know, I'm just really missing the smell of eggnog and cinnamon, snow and wintery breezes. I miss that moment late at night on Christmas eve when I sneak out of my room after everyone else has gone to sleep and I can just enjoy the last few minutes before the hectic morning. I sit quietly in the livingroom with all the lights turned off except the twinkling of the lights around the tree illuminating the brightly wrapped presents and casting shadows over the stillness. I love that, just sitting and feeling like there's something like magic so tangible I can almost touch it. That feeling is just. not. here.

But despite all that, I am pretty damn happy right now. Good friends, good drinking, I got some vanilla pretzels in the mail today, all is right in the world. I just watched "I just had sex" by the Lonely Island and I have to say, almost as good as "I'm on a boat." Not quite, but close.

Oh yeah, and Colt's getting here in a few hours. What now, bitches??!

Merry Christmas!!!

Elaina