Who would have thought that I'd meet Miss Piggy in Tanzania??

I don't think I've ever laughed as hard as I did on the night of November 5th, the occassion? Jen's birthday! Jen is a fellow CIDA intern whom I have the pleasure of working and sharing a house with everyday in Usolonga. We happened to be in town on her birthday and had a lovely birthday meal and celabration at Andrew and Miriam's house, our in-country reps. I've never seen anyone so appreciative of birthday gifts before! Jen, who has a little crush on Mr. Bean, was moved to tears by the Mr. Bean DVD we managed to find for her! Unfortunately, the disc was a dud and instead of hosting ten Bean movies, it only had two. Never mind, she enjoyed it just the same! The icing on the cake though came later on in the evening when her final gift was danced (Tanzanian style -remember the dancing of gifts at the wedding?) to her and she unwrapped her beloved Miss Piggy 'costume'! The story behind the pig: (and I apologize if this isn't funny to anyone else -it may be one of those "you had to have been there" moments, although I'm sure you can appreciate how disturbingly funny this "thing" of a costume is!) About a month ago, when shopping in the market, Jen noticed this Miss Piggy costume hanging at one of the vendor's booths. Having pointed it out to the rest of us, we all had a good laugh and wondered where this thing came from! It was by far the most disturbing second-hand article we had come across! It soon became routine that whenever we would go to the market, we would keep an eye out for Miss Piggy. She was faithfully waiting for us each time, hanging from the booth -it was actually very spooky the way they had her hanging by her neck! A few times we would stop in and ask how much she cost, eventually the vendor would see us coming and would automatically get Miss Piggy down so Jen could have a look! It seemed rather fitting to purchase the costume for Jen's birthday -I suspect she knew it was coming, not only had we told her she'd better be careful because she'd end up with it one day, she had also gone to the market the morning of her birthday and was suspicious when her beloved pig wasn't there! She was a really good sport and pranced around in the costume for the rest of the evening, posing for pictures and all! The only unfortunate thing is that now Miss Piggy lives at our house! Jen's convinced that she'll be able to re-sell the costume or give it away...any muppet fans out there? ;)