1. Twenty people. Zero relatives.
2. White Elephant gift-giving game without manipulative strategies or loud screaming/bad salesmanship/accusations of theivery.
3. As of 10:00 on Christmas morning, three chickens and a duck were alive in the courtyard. By noon, we had slaughtered them all. By 7:00 in the evening, the chickens were fried and the duck was baked. We ate them all.
4. Christmas dinner by candlelight...because there is no other light.
5. Sleeping on concrete and wooden slats.
6. Laura's 2007 Christmas Tree = 2-foot high neon-lit palm tree (picture the window of a dive bar) draped with a wooden candycane garland. The neon lights on the tree twinkled not because they were supposed to but because the electricity from the single, small solar panel at the house I was at didn't suffice to keep them lit.
7. Human-biting (and human-eating, according to the Discovery Channel) ants called "siafu" crawling into people's pants.
8. Pouring kerosene in the doorway to keep out the human-eating ants while we slept on the concrete floor.
9. Collecting rain water in buckets.
10. None of the following of my favorite things were involved: gift-giving, tree-trimming, marching around my parents' family room like a doofus, a chocolate fountain, (truly) twinkling Christmas tree lights, family, endless boxes of Christmas ornaments, butter cookies, apple pie, and many more.
While it's really hard not to miss my traditions, sometimes it's important to embrace the different.
First Christmas in Tanzania = Different.
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4 comments:
I hope you taught them that accusation of thievery are part of a white elephant. Also, my grandfather had a story about plucking a chicken for dinner--in East Orange in 1934.
Hope you had a good holiday
Love Dad
Wow, that sounds like a very different Christmas than what we are used to here in the US! It does sound peaceful though, without all of the commotion over presents, haha. I hope everything goes well and that you had a wonderful New Year!
-Greg
Hi, I missed you at Christmas it made
me feel more appreciated about what we have in our everyday lives
I can't believe hanging out with me didn't make it to your list of favorites??? And I love your description of the game! My bro and I were talking about the difference between xmas and xmas eve for us and we decided xmas eve is just much louder and obnoxious, lol. I love it! and you... Hope you got my letters!
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