A tropical Christmas...

Christmas in Tanzania was a strange…and yet strangely enjoyable time! Of course we clearly remember our last Christmas, a very special one, the last (for a while!) with our families back home in chilly England. This made us miss our families a great deal and find it odd to be so many miles apart at this time. Christmas is a bitter-sweet time for this reason but we were keen to sample the festive delights that Tanzania had to offer, albeit rather different from what we’re used to.

First came the build-up or lack of it. It was rather nice not to be bombarded with Christmas music and gaudy decorations in every shop from September (or August or whenever it is now!). This is something I hate back in the UK as you can often develop ‘Christmas fatigue’ by the time you actually get to Christmas! Also, I feel it’s a shame that we can’t make the most of the season we’re in rather than always looking to the next one. But as the months sped on (and especially as it was getting warmer rather than colder!) it was easy to forget that Christmas was approaching at all. I realised that though I don’t enjoy the ‘Christmas fever’ that grips the western world the thing I do enjoy is the sense of anticipation and perhaps even excitement that you get when Christmas is approaching – that was sadly lacking. There were no Christmas lights in the streets, tree in our house, frantic shopping trips, numerous carol concerts and parties or cheesy Christmas songs whichever way you turned. I had to physically keep reminding myself that Christmas was close and right up to Christmas Eve I didn’t really believe myself! When everything around you points to the fact that it’s ‘summer’ not Christmas your brain does seriously try to override this message!

When I think about it there were some of the usual pointers but they just looked different. These things obviously weren’t quite enough to produce in me a ‘Christmassy feeling’ as they weren’t what I was used to. Your brain can only work on what it has experienced before, I guess, what it knows as Christmas. A Tanzanian Christmas is an entirely new experience for it. We did have a Christmas ‘party’ at work (see our recently uploaded photos – link on the right and below) with cakes and sodas rather than the traditional mince pies and mulled wine. Matt and I played our favourite Christmas music album, which felt rather out of place in the long light days. We sung carols with colleagues in English, Swahili and to American tunes. Also, we did the obligatory Christmas shopping; first sweltering in Dar in early December and then Iringa on the way to Dodoma whilst visiting tourist markets and ‘duka’s (little shops).

The girls (our friend Katherine and I) did some Christmas baking in keeping with the season. We made our own mince pies from scratch. There was no such thing as mincemeat in Mbeya (understandable as Americans don’t even know what it is!) so we bought ‘cake mix’ (raisins, sultanas, orange peel etc), added lemon juice, a slosh of wine, chopped cashew nuts and added drinking water and boiled it to make our own ‘mincemeat’. We made the pastry and ‘bunged’ it together – voila…mince pies! Sometimes you have to create the Christmassy feeling yourself! (“They were absolutely gorgeous” – Matt)

The thing I did enjoy as Christmas came closer and we didn’t have so many ‘trappings’ of the season was that I could focus on the real meaning of Christmas. Of course, as Christians, we believe this time is to celebrate the fact that Jesus came to earth as a baby to die to save us and to reunite us with God, our creator and father. I did feel I understood more of what the Christmas message means, which was exciting. However, I realised that like the mince pies this had to be an intentional thing – to focus and dwell on the message. Though the lack of the ‘normal’ trappings left a hole I had to intentionally fill this with Jesus, the real reason for the season. It’s just as easy to pass this by here, as in the west, just in a different way.

Finally the Christmas holidays arrived! These definitely were much anticipated! We celebrated finishing work with takeaway pizzas and films (the former now available in Mbeya!). We then headed to Iringa, the town where we studied Swahili, for a change of scenery, relaxation and much shopping! We headed on to Dodoma on the 23rd to stay with our friends, the Morgans, that we shared a ‘banda’ (thatched hut) with at Language School. There were 11 of us there – many friends from our Orientation and Language School that are usually scattered around the country. This helped us to start feeling Christmassy and was the closest thing we could get to family, which is a huge part of Christmas for most people. The other pieces were not lacking either…we had a decorated Christmas tree with presents under, Christmas carols on Christmas Eve, stockings, presents and church on Christmas Day, films, games, chatting and reading all interspersed with a great deal of food and drink. It all felt remarkably like Christmas, except in 30 degrees celsius and with palm trees outside!

This Christmas made me realise that there is no such thing as a normal Christmas. Everybody does it differently and has there own traditions. These traditions subconsciously shape what we feel Christmas should look like. This can be hugely different even between families as well as countries (we had British, Americans and Canadians present). For example, we had cinnamon rolls, egg and fresh pineapple for breakfast on Christmas Day. My family always has smoked salmon and scrambled egg with Bucks Fizz (undoubtedly one of my favourite parts of the day!). Katherine’s has mince pies, Matt’s croissants or something similar and there are many other variations. For this reason Christmas away from home is never going to be quite what you’re used to but can be very enjoyable none the less! For us it was a perfect medium between our family Christmases and a fully Tanzanian Christmas with ‘pillau’ instead of turkey (we had chicken and beef this time!). Hmmm, makes me think… Christmas and our response to poverty…but that’s a whole other blog!

All the pictures shown are Christmas presents... a certain variety of quality is on display that is for sure! To see more pictures of our Christmas click here.

URGENT REQUEST!!
If anyone is sending me (Liz!) a parcel for my birthday…(don’t send one specially, just if you were already planning to) could you include some mascara please? I am getting worryingly low! I use Rimmel, 100% waterproof (necessary in the rainy season in Tz!) brown/black. Though I am experiencing a phenomenon similar to Elijah and the widow with the oil I’m sure it will not last forever. Thanks!

p.s. We are still waiting (and praying!) for our Christmas packages. They are being very slow.