Christmas

Christmas started with an 8am service, all in Swahili, at the cathedral. We did manage to keep up with some of the Litrugy and found the hymns once they had reached the 4^th verse but other than that we sat there just hoping that we wouldn’t miss the cues to stand and pray. The choirs had been practicing for weeks and were really quite good. Choirs over here usually only have a drum accompaniment and  they dance as well as sing. Church over here is fairly segregated with men and couples sitting on the right side of the church and single women, widows and women whose husbands are not there on the left. The men always go first to receive communion or give the offering.  There is no getting out of giving, regular members have envelopes with their names on them and you get told off in front of everyone if the minister doesn’t think you are giving enough. Even if you don’t have money you take along a chicken or a bunch of maize, which are then auctioned off after church.  Everyone goes up pew by pew to put their offering in the box so it would be really obvious if you didn’t go up. Church went for 2.5hrs, limited by the fact they had to finish so the 10am service could start, and after we had greeted a lot of people we came home to get ready for Christmas lunch at the Kleins. We had a white Christmas, as Rose and Nigel had invited all 10 of the westerners in Murgwanza to lunch. Sarah and Lucy, the Klein’s 2 daughters, were very excited by everything, particularly all the lollies they had received in packages from Australia. (lollies are not very common over here).

Christmas feast and presents are unusual here and it was humbling to contrast our lunch of roast chicken, vegetables and pavlova with the mother and child who came from the Malnutrition unit at the hospital to ask for food, as the food Rose and Nigel provide each month had apparently run out. We found out later that it was locked up and the person with the key had gone away for Christmas. The 2 y.o. child was so hungry he practically inhaled the bananas which Rose gave them.

After lunch Big Sarah, Claire, Naomi and I went to Sarah’s  neighbour’s house, where we had been invited to share their Christmas. We found that they had prepared a big stew, pilau and salad but we could only eat a small amount after our lunch, though we felt bad afterwards as we found out they had prepared it especially for us.