One of the things I like about Robert is his gusto for life. I think he’s game for just about anything. Before I even left Germany, we discussed one of the things he thought I must do – experience Mardi Gras. I wouldn’t be there during the main celebrations, but it would still be the Mardi Gras season. And, he explained, people celebrate Mardi Gras during the entire season, which runs from Epiphany (January 6) until Ash Wednesday. Would I like him to host a ball? A ball, to me, is some huge gathering in a ballroom big enough for at least a hundred people, with some sort of band or orchestra, and where people dance. Not so in Louisiana.

So, Robert had begun teaching me about Mardi Gras even before I left Germany. A ball, he said, is simply a gathering where all the participants wear formal attire, and may or may not wear masks. They do wear evening gowns and tuxedos. But there doesn’t necessarily have to be dancing at all, nor does there need to be live music, nor does it need to be in a ballroom. We could have a ball in his home! Knowing Robert, I was sure of that, but I don’t possess an evening gown. So we settled on a party. Less formal, but we’d still have fun. “Can you make a King Cake?” he asked. I had never heard of King Cake, but I promised him that I would try and make one. I love baking, and I, like Robert, will try almost anything within my power to do. I looked up recipes for King Cake online. Making this cake looked difficult, but doable.

I learn throughout this day how Mardi Gras is similar, yet also quite different from Karneval in Germany. They both have a long season, but in Germany it begins on November 11 at 11:11 am. I have no idea why, but that’s the way it’s done. In Louisiana it begins on January 6. In both places people wear costumes, but the costumes are very different in Germany. In Germany the idea is to look ridiculous, so people get dressed up as pigs, or Miss Piggy, or Kermit the Frog, or Donald Trump, or a clown, or whatever. Instead of wearing masks, they paint their faces. In both places there is partying all the way through the season, and in both places there are organizations sponsoring these parties as well as designing and creating their float for the parade. It’s as though there were a sort of template – an outline – for the season, but the layouts differ entirely, depending on where they celebrate. In Germany there is no such thing as King Cake, although people eat other cake-like things throughout the season. As soon as Ash Wednesday hits, these items are no longer available. And so it is with King Cake. When I lived in Belgium, I discovered something called galette des rois, a sort of cake filled with a bean. I read that they’re now filled with things like Disney figres. This cake is eaten on January 6, Epiphany, the day celebrating the visit of the three Magi to Jesus. Galette des rois is a cake eaten in many of the traditionally Catholic European countries and Mexico, so it is logical that this custom should have spread along with French and Spanish people to Louisiana.

Saturday morning we go shopping for the ingredients listed in my online recipe on my cell phone. I see you need yellow, green and purple colored sugar. The supermarket has the green and purple but has run out of yellow, so I have to settle for another kind of yellow sugared decoration. Robert is not dismayed. “It will have your distinct touch,” he say.

Making this King Cake is a huge project. I need to make a yeast-based cake batter, and the batter takes a couple of hours to rise the two times necessary. Finally, the cake is ready to bake – two long ropes, one filled with apples, cinnamon and pecans, and the other with a cream-cheese filling. I manage to twist it into a sort of wreath-shape. Into the oven. Then, when it is baked, it has to cool before I can decorate it and hide a plastic baby Jesus figure inside. The person who gets the figure is supposed to provide the next King Cake. And to have good luck for the coming year.

Finally, late in the afternoon, the cake is done! It looks pretty much like the ones in the photos, just not professional. Still, I’m pretty proud of myself! I did it!

“Now we have to decorate and set out food for the party,” Robert says. I have no idea how to decorate for a Mardi Gras party, but Robert knows and has exactly what is needed. It’s fun placing little chains of gold, purple and green beads everywhere. I ask what the colors symbolize. “No idea,” Robert says. Not satisfied with this answer, I Google the answer. Purple is for justice, green for faith and gold for power. This explanation was arbitrarily chosen in relatively recent history, however, in 1892, by the Rex – the Mardi Gras king for that year.

The people arrive, most of them teachers or professors or with partners from Robert’s university or the school attached to it. I find them really friendly and easy to talk to, and they all love my King Cake, which makes me feel appreciated and accepted. I can feel intimidated by intellectuals, although I could have become one myself, but chose not to. I married one, though, one who had the amazing capacity of living intensely as well as devouring hundreds of books – maybe over a thousand – about many aspects life. I don’t have that capacity. I love the experience of life too much to spend most of my time reading and thinking about it. When I read, I tend to choose books that will touch my heart. So I’m not nearly as knowledgeable as Robert and his friends. But I discover that Robert’s friends, just like Robert himself – and as my husband was too, for that matter, are not intimidating. They also simply love life, and they are a diverse crowd.

I meet an expert on the author Kurt Vonnegut. Luckily, I have read and enjoyed the book “Catch-22” and seen the movie. We have something in common. When he hears that I live in Germany, he tells me that Vonnegut was of German descent. We talk about my week in Texas. He seems to be trying to figure out how a person like me would choose to spend a week in Texas. Is that prejudice? I don’t know. When I tell him where I was, in Georgetown, near Austin, he nods vigorously. He thinks he understands my cousins and my experience. “Ah, that is a completely different Texas than the rest of the State! That entire area is really liberal.” I guess he has pigeonholed my cousins into that category. “And in Texas, you should hear some of their country music. Really complex, sophisticated stuff. And you should see them dance their Texas two-step. It’s amazing!”

I meet someone who grew up in Houston. Her accent sounds even stronger than Natalie and Rhett’s. And she is definitely not intellectual. She has fantastic stories to tell about her colorful life.

I meet an artist-professor couple. When Robert introduces the wife to me he says, “She comes from Palestine.” I am startled. Why did he say Palestine and not Israel? In New York City, at least when I lived there, she would have been introduced as someone from Israel. I learn that she is a Palestinian Christian, not Jewish, and she identifies with the suffering Palestinians have endured at the hands of Jewish Israelis. I have some knowledge of this history too. I once heard a Palestinian Christian talk about how Arabs convinced his family to leave Israel temporarily during the time of its foundations as a nation. They should return when things calmed down. His family, as with all other returning Palestinians, returned only to find their house occupied by Jewish Israelis. There was no explanation, no apology, no effort to resettle them. I understand the concerns of Robert’s friend. I detect no hatred of Jewish Israelis in her voice or demeanor. Just the conviction that Palestinians have rights which have been denied them and the hope that they will be restored. I often wonder myself why the current Israeli goverment so brazenly chases people even now from their homes in order to build Jewish settlements. Perhaps they are offered compensation. But even so, they seem to have no say in the matter.

I talk to another of Robert’s friends, who comes from Louisiana. I learn that she suffers from what she calls “white guilt” – the guilt of being white in a State with so many blacks. Around one-third of the population in Louisiana is black or African-American. Two-thirds are white. But Robert tells me that Natchitoches is only about 20% white. She suffers, feeling the pain of blacks who have been discriminated against since the very beginning , when they were brought to Louisiana as slaves.

One of Robert’s close friends has been his travel companion on several trips to Europe. She also has stories about some of their experiences. There are other friends I’d love to talk to, but don’t get much chance to interact.

The last guests leave at around 2 am. It’s been great party! I am stimulated by all the conversation. I like Robert’s friends. I am very relieved that the King Cake was a success. We leave most of the clean-up for the next day. We each go to bed, satisfied with the day.