Holiday Season

Happy Holidays !

While holiday season may be over back home, here things are just picking up. I think this month alone there are 4-5 different fetes. And really I think pretty much year round there are all kinds of fetes going on- In the summer/fall, they are more Muslim holidays (like Ramadan) and now in the spring it’s more about national and international fetes. But no matter Muslim or non-religious, the big fetes are all just that- big- lasting anywhere from 3 days to an entire week. Here’s a calendar run through of recent fetes and upcoming fetes:

National Bilingualism Week: January 1-February 4

Youth Day/Actually an entire week: February 4- 11

Women’s Day/Actually an entire week: March 1 - 8

Commonwealth Day (kind of like Bilingualism Day): March 9

National Arts at School Day: March 11

Open Door Day (have no clue- guess I’ll find out): March 17-18

Francophonie Day: March 18

Labor Day: May 1

National Day: May 20

Celebration for fetes can range from big parades and soirees with the whole community to small things like maybe events just at the lycee. Sometimes there is no school for a fete (like Youth Day) and other times there is kind of school (like Women’s Day) which means officially there is school however most likely many students won’t come and neither will teachers (although no going to lie, that’s pretty much every day).

So in case you didn’t notice the dates, right now we are actually in the middle of celebrating Women’s Day. Activities started Wednesday and continue until actual International Women’s Day- March 8. Now I could write all about the activities butttt I will wait until after the 8^th when everything is finished but I will say it involves a visit to the prison, football, a parade and really cool pagne. But until then, Happy International Women’s Day! I think someone should celebrate back home for women, it is an international holiday.