I didn't wake up Amish but I got that way

Tiny E is a whole week old.

And how was your weekend? I had a short to do list for once. I have now gone two whole weekends not scrubbing my floors on my hands and knees! I think this is a huge plus, weekendwise. I mean on the scale of fun ways to spend your weekend, I think floor scrubbing comes in between catching up on your “hand wash only” laundry and cleaning under your refrigerator. Both useful tasks, both things that if you can not do them? Still okay. I mean, if you can put that hand washing in a delicate’s bag and let the machine do it, why not? And if someone is in your house checking under your refrigerator for dust bunnies? It means they don’t love you, and if you are asked to clean under your refrigerator? Move. Just take what you can and leave. You can start over somewhere else, it’ll be easier.

I was invited to a birthday party for a co-worker. I walked in the door and went from "doesn't she look nice?" to "why did she come dressed as an Amish person?" in a blink of an eye. I looked nice, I just didn't look like them. I looked like an Amish gone out on the town. My co-worker is Nigerian and so were most of the people in attendance to the point where I thought I was in a Benniton ad from the early eighties, only with less neon. Nice Nigerian ladies do not wear neon.

The birthday party was held at a local church and prior to the party there was a service. Do you know why the Catholic Church doesn’t employ “Praise Bands”? Because we have pipe organs. I think if you need to keep taking breaks to goose the congregation with a synthesizer and a girl singer, you may very well want to look at how long services are running .

I couldn’t decided if I was a bad charismatic or of they were bad Catholics. Because, really, this was no way to run a Mass. People just seemed to randomly get up from their pews (no kneelers!) and speak and these speeches useually turned into prayers . I couldn’t tell what kind of Protestants they were. There are so many different varieties of Christians these days, fundamentalists, Charismatics, Pentecostals, babists... the re-formation has come a long way since the advent of the Lutherans. The service I attended there was no speaking in tongues, so I guess they were not Pentecostals, but there were a great deal of very long prayers and clapping and swaying and praise banding.

People may bitch about us, but go to Mass in Manila or Berlin, you are going to know exactly what to expect. And Catholics? we're so well trained that we do not need to be told when to stand up - we all ready know when to stand up or sit down or kneel (although we are kneeling less and less these day and I don’t like it) we also rarely sway.

After the service there was a very large reception. I had no idea they were going to feed us! And boy did they feed us. Damn. I’m still full and it’s been two days now. If you see a Nigerian restaurant? Eat there, you will not be sorry. The party goers (those who were not playing Amish for a day, so pretty much everyone who was not me, although there was a white couple there dressed in dashikis) were all dressed in traditional Nigerian clothing , complicated looking head pieces and long gowns (I know they are not called “gowns” I didn’t know a polite way to ask “What do you call what you are wearing?”) all rendered in beautiful fabrics with fabulous textures and patterns. Looking around, it was like being in a display of very dignified flowering plants. But you know what? No kente cloth, not a scrap.

I went to Mass immediately after the party and who was saying the Mass but our Nigerian priest.