Party for the Workers

This past week, the work team from Detroit wanted to host a party for all the construction workers and their families.  They prepared games, snacks, and activities.  The plan was for the workers to stop work at 4 pm and the party would go until 6 pm.  But Africa is different, so really, the party didn't get started til about 5 pm and went til dark!

There are loads of photos in this post, because there just needs to be in order to explain all the goings-on at this big bash.  Let's get started:

Here come the families!  There were about 80 people in total that came.

We all gathered around the "tree" (yes, singular) where there were greetings and introductions.  Every time someone spoke in English it had to be translated to French and then to the tribal language, Anufo.

This is the team from Michigan.  They greeted the workers and families and introduced themselves.

After the greetings and introductions, the Michigan team wanted to take photos of each of the workers with his family.  I only shared pictures of Fusini and Bawa with their families (and Bawa and his family are further down) because they are the two carpenters that work with Nate the most.  They are really nice guys.

If a single worker came up to have his picture taken, then one of the guys would join him.  Just so he didn't feel all alone.  Here's Ethan with Ya-ya.  (I have a really funny story about Ya-ya. One day, Nate was trying to ask him his name and he kept saying "yah,yah" which Nate thought that he was agreeing with him, so Nate repeated the question and Ya-ya said, "yah-yah", so Nate repeated the question again and again, until he FINALLY realized the guy's name was Ya-ya.  It was really funny at the time.)

Bawa with his wife and daughter:

Sometimes when things got translated into Anufo, the workers would laugh really hard, like in the photo below.  Which sorta makes us wonder what they were saying!

The first game for the men was wheelbarrow races.  You can see Nate pushing Bawa on the left against two other guys.  These guys are super competitive.  They had to run down, switch positions and run back:

Every man who could participate did.  Here comes some more...

Nate and Bawa won their race.  Nate isn't competitive either (insert sarcasm font).

Kuami thinks he just won the Olympics!

The final race was Nate and Bawa vs. Kuami and Ibraim.

Every good race has a little rubbin' in it...

Okay, so the next event had me DYING laughing.  It was tug-of-war.  There were 7 guys on each side.  Here's Nate's team, including Bawa and Fusini -- carpenters unite!

And here's the opposing team of seven guys starting to pull:

The teams were so even that the rope hardly moved.  The guys were pulling so hard, the sweat was pouring off of them.  And I just stood there, cheering, laughing and taking photos.  If only I had taken video and you could hear them yelling, including Nate yelling "PULL!  STRONG!  FORTE!"

And then the drama happened.  An extra guy jumped in to help the "non-Nate" team.  All of a sudden, the competition was not fair.  Fusini saw this happen and just dropped the rope.  He was NOT happy.

They opposing team won.  Or so they thought.  And then a big brew-ha-ha started up, because they had cheated.  Below is Fusini.  He is not a happy camper.  You should've heard the yelling and fighting.  Unbelievable.

Anyhow, Adam finally got them settled, having averted a small war.  And explained the situation.  But the guys were not ready to quit.  They wanted this thing settled.  So round two begins....

 They pulled and pulled and pulled.  For what seemed like five minutes or more.  It was so even and they were not giving up.  Grunting, groaning, yelling, sweating....

They were getting so tired, some of them just sat down and held on for dear life.  It was the funniest thing I'd seen in a long time.  Look how tired these guys are...

And then, in one last surge of power, in one last deep down need for the gold medal, Nate's team PULLED and won.

It was like no greater joy on earth had ever come to them.  You would have thought they had just won --  a prize!  But no, not even a prize.

They were so happy.  Well, these guys were so happy.  I didn't dare take a photo of the unhappy ones because it might have made them even madder.  These guys jumped around cheering and high-fiving.  It was so funny.

Meanwhile, it was starting to get dark and the women (who had done the limbo) were getting ready to go home to make their supper.  The Michigan team asked that all the families line up so they could give out treat bags, popcorn, pop and some school supplies.  Which SOUNDS like a good idea.  Except that these people get so little given to them, and no one has ever taught them to line up and wait nice and tidy, so basically, they mobbed the tables (I'm not kidding) and were grabbing and taking and fighting...it got really ugly for a few minutes.  We finally took away the boxes treats and gifts until they settled down and explained again that each family would get some stuff, if they would kindly wait in line.  By then however, the piles of schools supplies has been well-pilfered and as we tried to hand them out in a nice and orderly way, there wasn't enough for each family.  So some of them left a little miffed.  But all in all, it was the most entertaining thing I've witnessed yet here in Mango.   The people really did appreciate it and the children were happy to go home with treats, balloons, and some school supplies.  It was a good time.

Last photo:  Here's Ethan with his little buddy, Celeste.  All our kids thought the party was a big success.  I think so too.