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The Summary:
Stuart finally has blue lips. He is the only one of the Kansas family that has been in the West African coastal waters for two hours or more. Three of the remaining four stayed for an hour or so. The fifth waded in until a man cleaned out his sinuses without forewarning. Ew; she went back to her book.

Bonne Fete

Erika Kraus
2007-01-23 13:22:42

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my family too.
It was all we could to walk home. We continued digesting until eating again the next day at another friend’s home. There were enough bottles of alcohol at this table that we all claimed one for the meal- Mom took the two-liter jug of sodabe.

To make the long story short, I can say that is doesn’t take much to get my family giggling, and hardly anything more to get us laughing, doubled over. Mom was worried at first about how well her fellow visitors were eating and drinking, asking me repeatedly if they had taken large enough shares, if they had cleaned the bones well enough, if they needed to drink another shot of sodabe (mostly that was Mom asking for another). She told Stuart to chug his beer when he said he didn’t care for it. I didn’t explain well enough the first time around that usually only la pate is eaten with the hands, rice goes with a fork or spoon. I doubled over laughing, bypassing the giggling, when Lana said, “I have never eaten rice with my hands before.” I looked to her side and saw Dad with two clean forks next to his plate and his fingers covered in rice. Then Mom put the tooth pick from the pineapple in her mouth to clean her teeth, then used her
still-clean fork to eat the fruit after picking her teeth clean of rabbit. I couldn’t breathe I was laughing so hard.
With my host family, in the land where sodabe flows freely, Stuart discovered Sangria, and Papa was pleased- everyone had alcohol in hand.

Basketball picked up with the addition of two more experienced Americans. If I hadn’t rolled my ankle, I am sure I could have helped bring the Yovocomé team to victory. It was fun anyway.

Dad’s foot started bothering him, but we continued touring, first to see hippos, one of the most beautiful evenings of the visit, and later to see Abomey. We also visited a village some ten kilometers from the main dirt road- we thought we killed the car there for a while, but it carried ...