Update on the Christmas tree

Hot weather does not make me feel Christmassy, but I sure do like waking up to bright sunshine every morning. It is very cheering. Well the hunt for a Christmas tree is over. On Thursday we prayed (not exactly sure about praying for a Christmas tree!!) and then went to one last store where we found 1 wonderfully plastic, slightly lopsided tree that the kids thought was great. In their opinion this is infinitely better than decorating the exercise bike (Daniel’s suggestion), buying a banana leaf baobab tree (my suggestion, and actually looks really nice decorated, but according to Joshua is not authentic) or any other real species of tree that isn’t really a Christmas tree. The good news is that the lights still work, even after two years in a box, so we now have a fully flashing Christmas tree.

Christmas frivolities aside it was quite a sad week. MAF medevac’d a pastor from Dodoma to Nairobi for an operation, but he died and had to be flown back in a body bag. Also a 4 month old baby that had been medevac’d from Dar (son of two teachers at the international school there) also died after being on dialysis for a few days. It was very sad because the baby had survived the medevac which was thought unlikely and had been doing quite well in hospital. The third thing that happened was that a Dutch medical student was medevac’d from Kampala after been dragged under a lorry. She has broken her pelvis in 4 places and is waiting to be medevaced to the Netherlands for further treatment. I have now discovered that our medical cover entitles us to be medevac’d by Lear jet back to Europe. Quite fancy the shorter trip by Lear jet, but am not sure that I want to be in a situation where I need to be medevac’d.The final thing was that the gardeners brother was killed by a hit and run driver in Nairobi.
Anyway, if you remember please pray for these situations.

O Christmas Tree, O Christmas Tree

Sorry to anybody who has e-mailed recently and has not got a response. Our power is very erratic and when we do have power the internet is often down. Most days the power is out at least some of the time. It wasn't helped by the fact that someone drove into the transformer outside our house and blew it up. Quite scary in the middle of the night, a huge explosion with a massive flash. I thought someone was throwing grenades outside the house. (Yes I always do jump to the worst possible scenario). That took around 16 hours to fix and we had power for a few more hours until it blew up again and the power was off for another long stretch. Combined with pouring rain it has made it very hard to do and dry laundry.

The children have now broken up for school. I have to say I don't really enjoy Christmas here that much. It just doesn't feel like Christmas. I know that isn't really the point of Christmas, but I do enjoy all the lights and the festive feel. We are having trouble trying to find a Christmas tree. The children are not very impressed by the lack of a tree, but I have been trying. There is a choice between a slightly dodgy looking Christmas tree sold by the side of the road, that although real, is definitely not quite the right type of tree and probably unable to support any decorations. The other option is an artificial one, but the supermarket only had a 20 cm one and one that was about 8 feet high!! The search continues. I haven't even started looking for a Turkey. I bought a Christmas pudding at a yard sale in April, so at least we can have a traditional dessert. Those things do last for ever- right? The good news is that there are plenty of Panetone to be had if you want to pay £20 or more for one. Where is good old Lidls when you need it? I have managed to buy Christmas presents for my children and the other children in the family, but that is it. I keep planning to go on line to look for other people, but it is difficult with no internet. So people, do not have high hopes for on time Christmas presents from this end. I am thinking about it though!