Christmas Eve in Africa. It's 7:25pm and the generator, which normally growls into 'on' mode at 7pm has finally come on. I was hoping it hadn't been given the night off!
I've hung my Christmas garland brought along from Canada. I've got my new African Christmas dress sort of pressed for church in the morning. No iron, so I just dampened and pushed and poked everything into submission before drying. I used up a gazillion cell phone credits and called a lot of near & dear folks back home, to send holiday wishes from afar. What a wonderful time that was!! I've wrapped the one real present I'll deliver tomorrow to the family who invited me to share the evening meal, and written my little Christmas cards to others. I should probably have bought a goat for my host instead, but that's hard to pull off on Christmas Eve, and I'm not really into goat rustling at this hour. There's a lot of singing in the air tonight...possibly choirs practising for morning, perhaps just families breaking into song. Everyone is happy that it's Christmas, but there isn't a bit of commercialism attached here in the village. How refreshing!
Everyone I meet in the village (and myself included) is fighting a nasty cold. I'm told it was brought on by the change in the weather, only I'm not too sure what that change was. Hmmmm...not so windy these nights...for a while there a big wind picked up every night at 9ish and played its tricks with my tin roof. Yesterday we had a short heavy rain. Other than that, everything feels about the same to me (hot, basically), so I'm not at all sure what I'm supposed to blame the cold on. I only know I'll be eternally grateful to my TEMBO friends who left a good stock of facial tissues with me when they returned to Canada in November.
I think I'll tell you about my friend Mama Farajah tonight. She's Vickie, but as Farajah's mom, she usually gets the other title, just as to her I'm Mama Matthew (first born child). Vickie is now the hostel attendant here at the compound. Remember descriptions of the hostel? My first home here in Longido? (if not, perhaps I only THINK I wrote about it ages ago...can't get online to check). Anyhow, Vickie works 7 days a week, usually 12 hours or more, cleaning, laundering, airing mattresses in the sun, killing termites and generally trying to do the impossible...make the rundown hostel look attractive enough to guests that they'll consider paying the 2,000 shillings (about $2) price for an overnight stay. For this, she earns about $90 per month, and I'm not sure where even that salary is going to come from next month, when World Vision's transitional funding for this place runs out. She's a divorced single mother with 6 children, ranging from the adult Farajah, to Esau who is mentally ill, another son Ivan off at secondary school somewhere outside of the village, eldest daughter Loveness who is one of our TEMBO sponsored girls entering her final year of secondary school, son Michael who's just found out he passed the exam for secondary school and aspires to be a professional soccer player (and how I hope he got a sponsorship somewhere to attend secondary), and youngest daughter Larrie (about 10), who hangs out a lot at my house, playing with my modelling clay and various other toys and often, out of nowhere, pitching in with my housework by doing dishes or such without being asked. There's also baby Arnold (Farrajah's son) who still breaks into tears if I try to touch him, but otherwise has progressed to smiles and giggles when I'm around. It was Mama Farajah who taught me how to get my kerosene stove under control, and who so kindly took on the moonlighting job of cleaning my house when I first moved in to the guesthouse. On my return from Arusha yesterday, she was quick to run out and greet me with a yell, a smile and a huge welcoming hug, as she normally does every day when we first meet.
I think Mama Farajah has to work tomorrow, and I can't for the life of me understand why no one stops to think how much she deserves the day off with her family. I took her a Christmas card today, and a small gift of 10,000 shillings ($10) suggesting she might be able to use it to buy some nice treats for Christmas dinner for the kids. Well, like I've told you before, you don't often see a lot of strong emotional response from folks here, but she was moved to tears, I was pronounced to be a gift from God, and made a permanent member of the family. It takes so little to bring so much joy and gratitude here.
I wish you all the best possible gifts of Christmas. I know that my day tomorrow will be full of heartwarming moments shared with the wonderful people of Longido.
Merry Christmas, friends.
Jotu
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