A different Christmas
This Christmas day was hot and sunny, perfect.
We started the day with a visit from a Zulu Father Christmas who presented the kids with all of their presents and much fun was had ripping the wrapping off and playing with the new toys.
Christmas Lunch was early (at 11am?!) and consisted of roast ham, beef, chicken curry and rice with bean salad and green salad, followed by trifle. Nice, and a bit different from roast turkey. (The Brits had our own roast dinner a few days later so we didn’t miss out, we even got mince pies, christmas pudding and white sauce!)
The reason for early lunch was that in the afternoon all of the volunteers and kids loaded themselves into a convoy of vehicles and we set out for the valley of Swayimane. Our destination was a family that Heather knows well and who have strong links with GGA, having been involved for years. The aim was to hold a party for all the kids there and from the surrounding houses. Unfortunately, time is a bit flexible down in the valley and everyone there had thought that GGA was coming the previous Friday, so there weren’t many kids around. (but there were many, many ants, of the biting variety)
Unfortunately too, I seemed to go down with some mysterious bug the second I got out of my car, that made me feel incredibly weird and sick for the entire duration of our time on this particular property. I ventured to try the toilet in a field (but on arrival decided I wasn’t that desperate!) The strange thing was that as we drove away from the site I felt instantly better, like something was being lifted off me. I couldn’t even drive at that point, I had to let someone else do it… all very mysterious… Only as we left did I wonder if it was something spiritual, as there’s a lot of spirit activity down in the valleys and this is Africa, home of some ‘interesting’ practices.
And I’m not exactly a ‘quiet’ Christian who’s going to accept some of these practices either. If you pray, please pray protection over us as we venture to these places often.
In any case, I’d almost completely recovered by the time we’d got a few miles down the road to my friend’s house, where a small gang of us popped in to bring Christmas presents to the children there. It was great to make a difference to a family at Christmas and for kids who had no presents to receive some toys, sweets and games (being a teacher, I had to make them educational). It was very peaceful and we had a good few hours with the kids there which was fun, so although I wasn’t with my family for Christmas, at least I had a family around me here. Which was nice.
We started the day with a visit from a Zulu Father Christmas who presented the kids with all of their presents and much fun was had ripping the wrapping off and playing with the new toys.
Christmas Lunch was early (at 11am?!) and consisted of roast ham, beef, chicken curry and rice with bean salad and green salad, followed by trifle. Nice, and a bit different from roast turkey. (The Brits had our own roast dinner a few days later so we didn’t miss out, we even got mince pies, christmas pudding and white sauce!)
The reason for early lunch was that in the afternoon all of the volunteers and kids loaded themselves into a convoy of vehicles and we set out for the valley of Swayimane. Our destination was a family that Heather knows well and who have strong links with GGA, having been involved for years. The aim was to hold a party for all the kids there and from the surrounding houses. Unfortunately, time is a bit flexible down in the valley and everyone there had thought that GGA was coming the previous Friday, so there weren’t many kids around. (but there were many, many ants, of the biting variety)
Unfortunately too, I seemed to go down with some mysterious bug the second I got out of my car, that made me feel incredibly weird and sick for the entire duration of our time on this particular property. I ventured to try the toilet in a field (but on arrival decided I wasn’t that desperate!) The strange thing was that as we drove away from the site I felt instantly better, like something was being lifted off me. I couldn’t even drive at that point, I had to let someone else do it… all very mysterious… Only as we left did I wonder if it was something spiritual, as there’s a lot of spirit activity down in the valleys and this is Africa, home of some ‘interesting’ practices.
And I’m not exactly a ‘quiet’ Christian who’s going to accept some of these practices either. If you pray, please pray protection over us as we venture to these places often.
In any case, I’d almost completely recovered by the time we’d got a few miles down the road to my friend’s house, where a small gang of us popped in to bring Christmas presents to the children there. It was great to make a difference to a family at Christmas and for kids who had no presents to receive some toys, sweets and games (being a teacher, I had to make them educational). It was very peaceful and we had a good few hours with the kids there which was fun, so although I wasn’t with my family for Christmas, at least I had a family around me here. Which was nice.
posted by Caroline @ 9:00 pm
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