Tanzanian Tales III: Happy Holidays

Those who have been reading my African dispatches for the past few years are probably getting tired of me starting off my Christmas letter by complaining that it is challenge to generate Christmas spirit in the absence of winter as we experience it in the Northern hemisphere. Not being a skier and disliking ice skating (*gasp* no, say it ain’t so!) as I do, Christmas time is really the only time that I actually find myself missing snow and ice as the seasonal markers of the magical time of year that is Christmas for me. I miss the clean, cozy quiet of the world after a big snowfall and the clear, cold blue of the sky when the sun comes out and makes the snow sparkle. I even miss the blast of cold that forces its way into the interior of the house as people arrive stamping the snow off heavy boots and finding places to hang coats, hats, scarves and gloves. Somehow all these things represent and inspire in me the warmth and good cheer of Christmas.

This is now the fourth Christmas that I have celebrated in Africa and the third African country where I have been living when the blessed day came and went. Each year as I have struggled to find my Christmas spirit in the absence of familiar surroundings and loved ones, I have also found ways to bring some of my comfortable traditions to each place and share new experiences with the family that we have made and the wonderful friends that we have found.

This year, we started the celebrations a week early with a Christmas hamper gift ceremony at one of the Mwadui churches. One of the muzungu (white, foreign) ladies of the mine attends a church close by her house throughout the year with her husband. It is a typically lively African congregation that uses a bare-bones hall as their church building, filling the space with song and praise several days a week in order to support its members in a Christian way of life. In an effort to give back to a spiritual community that had been so welcoming, Margaret decided that she wanted to do a Christmas hamper project. Early in November, the Church elders were tasked to make a list of needy families. They outdid themselves by inviting elderly and infirm Mwadui residents that are not necessarily regular members of their church to the Saturday morning ceremony to distribute the hampers. Meanwhile, some of the other ladies of the mine got involved and made a collection of money, excess items like bug spray, toilet paper and soap as well as used clothes. The cash was spent on washing basins which served as the containers for the beans, rice, bread flour, maize flour, tea, sugar, washing powder, sweets, kapenta (dried fish), cooking oil and salt which were also on the list. Margaret reported that the shopping was a memorable experience as the money collected for such a good cause seemed to be multiplying in her pocket like the proverbial loaves and fishes. Not only did they buy plenty of each of the items on the list but the cash stretched to afford kanga fabrics for each recipient as well as more sweets and still there was some small change left over. Of course this went in the collection basket at the Church. We all got together on the Wednesday before the ceremony to divide the items into the basins which were then wrapped in the gaily coloured fabrics. Surprisingly, this is the first time in living memory that such a thing has been done in Mwadui. Plans are underway to make sure that it is not the last.



After such a feel-good start to my Christmas week, I couldn’t help but get in the mood. As Simon and I did our morning walks I found myself looking at Mwadui with new eyes. The last of the blossoms on the flame trees and the ever blooming bougainvillea were suddenly happy reminders of the twinkling lights of the season in Canada. I busied myself with baking and crafting and managed to take on hosting the weekly mine ladies’ tea in my house for the first time since we arrived on the mine. Presents arrived for Simon from all over and our snail-mail and e-mail inboxes filled with greetings as friends from near and far took the time to say hello. I spent the day on Christmas Eve baking Christmas goodies and preparing for a quiet evening braai/BBQ with another couple at our house. It felt good to fill my home with some of the fragrances that I associate with Christmas. While we didn’t get a tree to decorate, Kobus allowed the new decorations we were given to be hung from a dried seed arrangement that he put together a couple months ago.



At six months, Simon is still a little too young to grasp that it was a different day from any other but he did enjoy tearing at the paper on his gifts on Christmas morning. He also enjoyed the attention from both of us as for once we presented him with paper that we encouraged him to rip up.



Most of the muzungu on the mine left for the holidays but given that the mine production never ceases, some of the senior management of each of the mining companies has to remain behind. Most of these gathered for a Christmas feast. We had pork roasted on a spit along with dishes from each family’s Christmas traditions by the pool in the afternoon. By then, I was back to loving the climate and no longer missing the snow. Simon outdid himself, getting in the pool quite happily and even trying to swim after some of the toys that were floating in the water.

As I get back to finishing this off, it is New Years Day. We had the party here last night so that Simon could sleep in his bed as we celebrated the passing of 2005. We were all outside in the garden enjoying snacks cooked over a fire as the moment arrived. We were comparing the time on watches and cellphones trying to decide if midnight had been and gone already or not. Then the mine’s midnight siren which signals the end of the night shift’s lunch break let us know that Mwadui had officially worked its way into 2006.

So here we are. I hope that everyone has had a happy holiday season and wishing all a very healthy and prosperous 2006. You can expect regular reports on life in Tanzania as the year progresses and I’m hoping to post some of my Malawi newsletters very shortly.

All the best,
Krista