This is going to go down as one of my craziest Easters ever, and it's going to take a week's worth of posts to get it all down. Sorry in advance, but at least there are pictures!
Thursday night I had planned to make my grandma's Mexican Spaghetti recipe for Mr. Florida and Junior. (Junior took Mr. Florida and me out for fondue a few weeks ago, so I needed to repay the favor.) They were just leaving to come this way when Mr. Florida got the call that C and E, the missionaries whose house he lives in, were back from the states and needed him to come unlock the door. Long story short, they all ended up in my tiny apartment for dinner. They had to bring their own chairs! It was really fun, though – lots of good conversation about C and E's experiences fundraising in the states for their ministry. C told us some very interesting things about what he tells people that he knows from forty years of dictatorship that you can't expect to create a democracy overnight in a country because it can't be imposed from the outside. Problem is, his friends in the states are all very conservative and believe that the president can do no wrong. It was interesting to hear C talk about this – many Congolese see lots of parallels between their situation and that in Iraq.
Good Friday was uneventful until late at night – it wasn't really a holiday here, and I had an interview at an international NGO with a great Togolese doctor. That night, after exchanging a couple of very excited text messages, Miss M called me to tell me all about her new boyfriend. From Maudie's, where she and the rest of the youth group were having a Good Friday lunch. It was so great to hear a voice from home, even if she just had to mention Maudie's. (Miss M's comment: "Well, I haven't been here since your going away party." Thanks. :) No, it was so fun to talk to her – you could hear her glowing on the other end of the line. It was also good because she reminded the youth minister to check his list for youth camp chaperones – I'm scheduled to go to camp a week after arriving back in the states in June.
Saturday wasn't too exciting, except for getting an email from The Diplomat. The Diplomat is a friend from Up North, who is a friend primarily because we were the only Southerners at ISS, and it turns out that The Diplomat's best friend from his master's program was the head RA at Governor's School the summer I attended, because that's how the south works. Anyway, despite his penchant for walking into rooms and making pronouncements like, "Hell's bells, I just parked behind a car with Tennessee tags, a Baylor plate cover, and a Greek sticker, and thought, 'That can only be one person in this university, Miss [TexasinAfrica],'" The Diplomat's a good guy. He was the only gentleman at Yale – you never had to wait for him to open a door – and he introduced me to all of the following, each of which I am forever grateful: Wilco, North Toward Home, Foxfield Races, Sandra's Place, Lucinda Williams, making everyone wear a hat to your Derby/birthday party, the best bbq joint in D.C., alt.country, and Square Books in his hometown of Oxford, Mississippi.
Anyway, The Diplomat wrote from his new post this weekend. Seems the government in its infinite wisdom decided to uproot him from his previous cosmopolitan, exotic posting and is now letting him deal with sensitive issues in the desert. While his girlfriend got to go back to Washington. With the dog. I wrote back asking if I could visit and shortly received a reply that in an official capacity The Diplomat could not recommend it. Apparently it takes a month to get a visa for certain picky, fundamentalist-run states. The Diplomat suggested doing what he had done two weeks prior, spending a weekend in Paris with his sweetheart. That's the thing with the diplomats – they get these crazy ideas that one can just jet off to Paris for a sanity-restoring weekend. Some of us only have Nairobi to look forward to. And, wow, are we looking forward to it. Movies! Friends! Stores! Diet Coke! In plastic bottles!
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