Emmanuel's Baptism

Well, the baptisms here are definitely a big party. We were asked to be godparents for Erik's cousin. Her little boy is an angel and so we started to buy all of the things we needed. We needed to buy an outfit..it was like a bishop dress for a child with a cap with shoes, a shell to pour the water, an engraved medal with his name, shoes and a candle. Then we had to have little souvenirs with Emmanel's name and our names for each of the 120 guest. We also had to throw "bolos" After the four course dinner of traditonal food we threw coins and candies to all the children. So the baptism was at the church then we went to a hall where we had the dinner and a dance!! But the church ceremony was the best. There was a couple to be married, a first communion child, and ten children to be baptized. SO the priest arrived late after we had listened to a toothless man talk about religion for one hour. Then the priest fell asleep during the ceremony but woke up to light enough incense to choke the crowd so one of the older children to be baptised vomited all over the floor the ice cream he had eaten before church. With all of this, there were small children smartly dressed in suits carrying plastic bags and bowls of ice cream running thru the church...while indigenous women were looking on. All in all it was quite the ceremony and everybody was blessed and went away happy!! That will be interesting to see on video!! Check out the pictures of this beautiful boy ..he was a perfect angel during all this commotion!! Also Ana Sophia our niece was at the party so we had to include a picture of her too!! What a cutie!!