Tuesday, December 30, 2008

Christmas in Reverse

1:39 pm | Edit Post
A traditional English Boxing Day always consisted of finishing off the previous day's turkey and whatever else was still edible (Brussels Sprouts excluded as there are many who would question how edible they were in the first place… let alone cold or reheated!!!)   My Boxing Day, however, consisted of putting the innards and pump head on one of the wells we had sunk the previous month.  Not that traditional I know, but very worth while for all concerned.
 
We spent Christmas day with our friends Steve & Charlie eating a chicken that didn't need potatoes to prop it up due to its slenderness.  This one was from Ouaga!  We were very fortunate to have all the trimmings, bread sauce, cranberry sauce, Christmas pud as well as mince pies and a wonderful Christmas cake that a friend had very kindly baked for us in the UK, thanks to all the visitors we had out at a most favorable time of the year.  We even had a few presents to open which arrived un-typically in time for the occasion.  We were reliably informed that one of our sons (and it wasn't the three year old…)had a midnight feast of a fudge finger from his stocking.
 
In Djibo the Church holds their Christmas celebrations on the evening of the 24th.  I was informed that the one of the churches' celebrations here in Djibo went on until 4am the next morning.  The Fulani church, however, were much more civilised.  Starting at 6:30 pm with the singing of Christmas related songs and finishing with a meal of macaroni and goat.  We were back home by 9pm to get the children off to bed and do our parent/Santa thing the night before.  Remember the finger of fudge.  We even placed a block of cheese in Amelia's stocking, not because we are odd, but because that's what she wanted for Christmas.
 
The week leading up to Christmas we were all down with malaria apart from Amelia.  Not really a Christmas tradition but it's good to do things a little differently from time to time.  Apparently it stops one getting into a rut.  As well as being visited by this rather unwelcome parasite we did have some other guests who were very much welcome, our friend Robin Watson who is working on the Fulfulde translation of the Bible, and our treasurer and his family.  We also had the American Ambassador and her husband for supper one evening as they were doing a Christmas tour of the north of Burkina visiting peace corp workers.
 
One thing we can say about our Christmas.  It wasn't un-eventful.  Hope you had a memorable and meaningful Christmas as well.

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