Lauren's Didinga Baby Shower

Before Lauren and Johnathan, our fellow Didinga missionaries, returned to the States to welcome their first child into the world, we wanted to celebrate with them the miracle that pregnancy is. Naturally, we decided to host the first Didinga baby shower in the history of the world!!! Sounds impressive, doesn't it.

Like most American women, I've been to a number of baby showers in my years. They are usually a nice enough way to pass a Sunday afternoon, but never anything to write home, or in this case blog, about. However, this particular shower was rad. I can humbly make this bold statement because I had little to no role in planning or executing this event.

I have never been a great party planner or a detail orientated sort of gal. Thankfully for me, and in this case, Lauren, my housemate Elly is both of these things. You would be hard pressed to find anyone as excited by matching napkins or sentimental Christmas cookies shaped like flying reindeer. It's great! So, the responsibility and therefore credit for this rockin' shower must be given entirely to Elly. My role, was much like my role in preparing for family holidays at my parents' house - ie. asking lots of, "What do you want me to do now?" questions and then running to and fro cleaning plant leaves or in this case, fastening twirly pink and blue ribbon around the porch and gathering every chair - stool - bench in 500 mile radiance.

The shower started with chai and mandazos (Africa's version of a donut). Then each of the ladies shared about their families and a piece of Didinga mothering advice for Lauren.

* "Be patient."
* "Baby number two should not come until the first is walking."
*"Babies cry a lot and need a great deal of attention. Be patient."
*"Don't get mad when your baby cries, just go like this (here they would model the world round model of bouncing the baby) and say 'Jaho hah.' - Quiet please.

We then played Pin the Baby on the Momma's Back - our version of Pin the Tale on the Donkey. This part of the afternoon was priceless. The ladies, never introduced to the game as a youngster or turned off to it at the age of 10, absolutely loved it. We all did.

The winning 'pin'

Hilarious!

Ok, so every last one of the party guests, all except Lauren that is, cheated while playing Pin the Baby. See how this unassuming old woman is using her left hand to gauge her positioning? All of the ladies were having such a good time that we decided to overlook this obvious disregard for the rules, but just this once.

Lauren also opened several handmade gifts from Didinga friends.

Beads, a gourd rattle and rain/sunshine gourd baby protector (on her back)

Lauren and Jonathan also played this air-gun-pop-the-balloon-and-determine-the-sex-of-your-unborn-child game, which is only slightly less accurate than a Western ultrasound in determining the sex of a baby. The general gist of the game was: blue balloon left unpopped = boy baby, pink balloon = girl baby and green = well, we weren't so sure about this one, but had the balloons.

Looks like we will be welcoming baby girl Ramirez into the world!

What fun sharing the coming Ramirez miracle with our Didinga neighbors and friends.
Praying for a comfortable delivery for Lauren and a healthy Ramirez wee one.