And There Won’t Be Snow in Africa This Christmastime….

Ok so, it’s Christmas, and I’m in Africa, I couldn’t resist a little “Feed the World Reference.” But it’s also true. I’m in Dar es Salaam right now and it is soooooooooo HOT! It’s like standing in line at Disney World in August all day and night minus the little tunnels of fans spraying a cooling mist on you. Its taking a cold shower that just won’t get cold enough and sweating again as soon as you touch the knob to turn off the water. So basically, its really hot. But let’s not get ahead of ourselves. Let me back it up to Christmas.
Christmas in Mbeya. Oh glorious Mbeya where the weather is so much better. Love that place. We kicked off the festivities on Dec 23 when we had a NewbieBQ at our Canadian friend Deborah’s house in Mbeya Town. Get it? NewbieBQ? BBQ for the Newbies? Yeah, we thought we were pretty clever too. So we invited all of the new education volunteers that recently arrived in Mbeya region to come eat and drink and be merry, which was fun times. Then on Christmas Eve, Deb’s orphans came to her house and we ate all day long. Ridiculous amounts of ridiculously good food. I even provided some some Christmas tunes via my ipod and some borrowed speakers. Although I didn’t find a lot of the oldie goldies until after Christmas on my way to Dar, but nonetheless, we had Christmas music. That night we went stood outside and sung Christmas carols with the kids and then they sang some Swahili songs and we danced in a big circle together. We even decorated a Christmas tree together and had an AMAZING stuffed turkey.
On Christmas day, after the kids opened their presents, my plans changed about 4 times before noon, but I ended up going to my friend Teri’s village to celebrate with her there. I’m glad I did because what we experience there is best when shared. As soon as we got there we had pombe (aka corn moonshine) forced upon us by 70 year olds. We told them we were ok with our beers, but we had to take a sip or two just to make them happy. Its gross, I do not recommend it. So then as I was dragged off into a corner to dance with a Babu (grandfather), Teri got out her camera and ended up having to a do a photo shoot of several different people variously posed with their pombe. Some wanted their picture to be taken squatting down scooping the pombe from the bucket into their big plastic cups. Some preferred action shots with their faces completely covered by the cup as they chugged the milky looking alcohol. Either way, hilarity ensued. Eventually it got a little hot in this particular hut so we moved into the more chill pombe hut and talked with some villagers and tried to learn some more Kisafwa (the local tribal language in both of our villages.)
What’s missing from this Christmas? Well, there was no “A Christmas Story” 24-hour Marathon on TBS. There was no watching “A Muppet Christmas Carol” on VHS with my sister 45 times. There was no “Charlie Brown Christmas,” although Teri had a great king-size replica of his tree. There was no flying mess of meringue and chocolate chips from baking all night long. But it was a good Christmas in Africa’s own way.
I went back to my village just for a couple of days then abandoned the poor people again to come to Dar to celebrate New Year’s Eve. A lot of volunteers from my training class went to a beach resort called Kipepeo Village. Some people camped in tents and some slept in thatched hut bandas. The beach was beautiful, although the absurd amount of sea weed made swimming a bit tricky. On New Year’s Eve we walked down to the next resort called South Beach, and I must admit, it was very Miamiesque. It was a huge place with lots of lights and loud music and mostly fun dancing, minus these Indian boys with no shirts that looked like they were about 12 that kept trying to dance with us. That was a little awkward. But overall, good times.
So there you have it, my first African Christmas and New Year’s. I can’t believe I left Gainesville 7 months ago. Time is going by so much faster now. While I did have a good time here over the holidays, of course I thought of all of you back home. You know how it goes, Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold. I’m not even going to apologize for the cheesiness. Hope everyone had a nice holiday wherever you celebrated it. Happy New Year!