Tuesday, December 25

Christmas


Christmas here is both enjoyable and frustrating. Buying presents is hugely frustrating. I love Christmas shopping and yet since I have lived in Africa I haven't really been able to do it. In Dodoma there was nothing to buy and here there is lots to buy but huge prices to go with it, ranging from £5 for a few chocolate coins, £35-£40 for a DVD or £200 for a box of lego. The only alternative is Amazon which has to be thought off ages in advance to arrange the gift to be sent to family or friends and then brought out here. Generally that means the adults get no presents and the kids get some if we have been organised enough. 

Food is also hugely expensive. I wanted to make truffles, but as I priced the ingredients, it came to such a horrendous amount, I abandoned the idea. I thought maybe I could make peppermint creams instead, however  there was no peppermint essence. My Christmas food purchases were a chicken (2kg for £10) and a ham. (£1.5kg for £15 pounds). Apart from that the only other things I have bought for Christmas are mince meat for mince pies and cream for desserts. So we have bought no cheese, olives, pickles, crisps, nuts, drinks or  other Christmas fare. Don't feel too sorry for me though as my mum had already sent me a few Christmas goodies.

Having hot weather (It was around 27 degrees C today) is both wrong and great at the same time. Wrong because having been brought up in colder climes, I am conditioned to associating Christmas with cold weather. Warm weather just doesn't feel Christmassy to me. However at the same time I love the weather here. On Sunday night we had carols by candle light in the garden and it was nice to be able to sit outside in shorts and T-shirts and sing carols. Watching Caleb and his two buddies trying to set fire to a bush was less relaxing, but the evening went off without a huge bush fire, so it was OK in the end. 

We had Christmas  day outside too. There were 36 of us in total (including Ruben) and we all sat out in the garden to have our Christmas feast. That's another thing I enjoy about Christmas here, we always have an International feast. We all bring Christmas food to share, our favourite bits from our home countries. No one minds that it isn't particularly authentic and we have great variety, lots of different meat, sweet potato bake,(America)  peanut rice (Zimbabwe), layered salads (Australia),  Southern fried chicken (America) and a spread of delicious desserts, cheescake, trifle, pavlova, Christmas pudding, cookies, nuts, sweets etc.. I enjoy the freedom to do Christmas however we want. At the same time Christmas is the time I get most homesick and wish I could be in the UK celebrating with my family. I think that is why so many of us like to get together and celebrate with our MAF family.

I guess the first Christmas was probably a lot more like a Kenyan Christmas with the temperatures here and in its humble setting. Not so far away from us are many people who don't have the luxury of any presents or any Christmas food. So from Kenya, a Happy Christmas, and whatever you are doing, may we all appreciate how blessed we are materially and spiritually.

1 Comments:

At 10:40 am, Anonymous caroline said...

hi, seemed to have lost sight of your blog till today so lovely to catch up on your news! and late late happy Xmas and new year to you' all! bit damp here but pretty sunrise, from our new conservatory(!), up to pick up car as Rich in rush to work around 6.30, so i could take Matt to watford for shift at Presence. Cat back at work and Anne-marie went back to Liverpool for NYE so all quiet now! God bless and equip ypou for all hazards and joys in your 2nd (?) home xxxx

 

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