Happy Ish-Tar

We were informed by the pastor at church last Sunday that Easter should not be called Easter but rather Resurrection because Easter is named after the Greek God "Ish-Tar" and therefore Easter is pagan. Pagans go to the Lake of Fire after death, FYI.

Semana Santa started on Wednesday evening and you can really feel it all over the city. The streets are much emptier (they look like our streets on work days now) and Christmas music plays at night. Apparently any holiday celebrating Jesus is fair game for Christmas music. For some reason it is also bad luck to have a baby born on Good Friday, Black Saturday or Easter Sunday. Maybe many women are at home "holding in" their babies or doing something to prevent birth because the clinic has been absolutely barren the past few days. This is NOT normal for a place where every third woman is pregnant.

Lindsay and I spent Thursday afternoon and evening in the clinic alone with one other newly hired midwife while the rest of the staff was at Tina's baby's memorial service. We played a vicious game of scrabble and talked about how Jesreal (the midwife) really wanted to come to the US. We waited for a labor and waited and waited. Nobody showed up. They didn't want their babies born anywhere near Good Friday.

Yesterday we went to Hilary and Davids to help prepare for the Easter Party. We made and frosted 50 cupcakes and two cakes. At the end I think I had eaten maybe 5 cupcakes. oops. We also brought the kitties along (we now have four kittens in the apartment) and gave them baths, clipped their nails and attempted to give them away as Easter gifts. Lindsay and I went door to door throughout Hilary and David's neighborhood explaining we were friends of their neighbor and wanted to give kitties away as Easter gifts. Nobody seemed very into it. One girl said her Auntie and Uncle hate cats. Another guy said no and showed us his little drop kick dog to prove that he couldn't have kitties. Another man was asleep outside a house and when we asked him if he wanted a cat he kept nodding his head yes. He also had two vicious dogs. We then started saying anything we wanted and he kept nodding his head yes. We decided he had no idea what we were saying and out kittens would surely be lunch for the snarling dogs at the gate. We said goodbye and he nodded his head yes.

We finally stumbled upon a family of six or seven sitting under a few trees in the shade next to their cousins big house. We showed them the kittens and they seemed moderately interested. One of the boys (about 17 years old) was very interested in talking to us and was happy to hold Princess (the only girl kitty) when we handed her over. After a few minutes of chatting and explaining that we wanted him to KEEP the cat not just hold it for a few hours he obliged.

We said our goodbyes to Princess and said we would bring him back some cat food. He and his brother (or friend or someone) insisted on taking photos with us with the cat before we left. We gave thumbs up in the photos and they kept saying you are booooootiful. When we returned with the cat food we posed for yet another round of photos. As we were walking home they ran up to us yet ANOTHER time. One of the boys kept asking where to buy cat food as the other boy quickly snapped photos of us. We explained they can buy cat food in grocery stores and they asked for yet ANOTHER round of photos. Something tells me every time anyone comments on how cute their cat is they will tell the story of how they got it from American girls and proceed to show the entire photo album of us. If you happen to see my face (greasy and sweaty) all over the Internet, let me know.


Today we are going to the Easter Party which will be Karaoke and egg tosses. I promise to photo document!