9 Mornings Update and Holiday Cookies

As it turns out, my original goal of going to 9 Mornings every day was entirely too ambitious. Especially since I never get to bed before 11 pm and the 3:30 am wake up requirement left me in a perpetual zombie-like trance. I did manage to haul myself out of bed for 3 of the 9 Mornings and was glad I did. First of all, it is amazing to be outside in the early morning in St. Vincent because it's cool, quiet and you can see approximately 1 billion stars. And since it is so dark out in the country (coupled with the severe lack of sleep), the lights at 9 Mornings seem even more stunning. The entertainment varied each day, but usually there was some sort of karyoke, guessing games for children, traditional Vincentian dishes like callalou* and bush teas**, costume contests and special appearences by local celebrities. The ceremonies are generally aimed at children, but adults join in the fun as well. The organizers also created special contests for Vincentians living abroad who returned for the Christmas season and visitors experiencing 9 Mornings for the first time. The first day (Tuesday, December 16th), I went to the Carriere 9 Mornings, which is about a half hours walk from my house. I thought it was really nice, although it was on a much smaller scale than other 9 Mornings. On Thursday, December 18th, I went to 9 Mornings in Kingstown, which was significantly larger and more crowded. We tried to go to the Mespo 9 Mornings, but someone apparently dropped the ball, because even though they hung a sign and lights, no one ever organized the 9 Mornings ceremony! Fortunately, a van drove through at 4 am and took us to town. This day was "Audience Day," so anyone who wanted could go up on stage and sing or dance. Skarpyon, a local celebrity, also performed on this day. The last 9 Mornings I attended was on Tuesday, December 23rd in Carriere. I think everyone was pretty tired by this time, because it started an hour late, a pretty significant delay in a 2 hour ceremony! All in all, I was pleasantly surprised by what I saw of 9 Mornings. I'm glad that I was able to experience this entirely Vincentian tradition and I hope to power through at least 4 or 5 mornings next Christmas. I'm posting the few pictures I have.
On Wednesday, December 17th, I invited the other volunteers over and we made Christmas cookies, which may be an entirely American tradition as my neighbors and friends here thought it was strange that we would bake cookies instead of cakes. Even so, we had a lot of fun and watched Christmas-y movies like "A Charlie Brown Christmas" and "The Nightmare Before Christmas." In fact, it was so fun that I invited some of the neighborhood kids over yesterday to bake Christmas cookies. It made for quite a crowded kitchen (4 - 6 kids plus me), but they were great - there was surprisingly little fighting over who got to do what and then only thing they needed help with was cracking the eggs. The most fun part was that each kid got his or her own bowl of dough to add food coloring to. Most of them went a bit color-happy and ended up with greenish-brown gloop, but there were a few nice looking results (notably a purple and green swirl pattern). The important thing is everyone had fun and it was a great way to curb boredom for an afternoon.
On an unrelated note, those of you following this blog will be excited to know that my eggplant plant survived the caterpillar mauling and is now growing new leaves and the pepper plant has begun to form a tiny bell pepper!
Happy Holidays!

*Callalou is a soup made from dasheen leaves (called callalou), coconut milk, potatoes (or other starch) and some kind of meat.
**Bush teas are just teas made from local plants (bush).