Christmas in Tanzania
This must be one of the first Christmases where I haven’t woken up super early to see what was under the tree.
party hats!
What we have had today though is lots of laughs, fun, food and generally a lot of lazing about in the heat with drinks in hand. All in all it’s been a fantastic day. We made a big breakfast spread this morning, moved the Christmas tree out into the yard and basically set up camp in the cabana for the rest of the day. The girls then moved to the kitchen to make a cake for Emmanuel’s birthday which is also today. After ruining the package cake mix with a rotten egg we had to start from scratch with no recipe and only basic ingredients. It wasn’t the worst cake in the world but that’s about all the praise I can give it. It did look good though. Pimms and lemonade and a BBQ finished of the afternoon and now it’s beers and scrabble as the afternoon cools off and the sun starts to set on Xmas 2011.
I asked everyone what was the best Xmas gift they had ever received. Funnily enough no one could really come up with one. I think what really makes a great Xmas is the people you spend it with and the experiences you share. While I am certainly sad that I am not with family today this had certainly been a unique Christmas and one I am not likely to forget in a hurry.
Our tree!
Christmas and Boxing Day were public holidays so we did not go in to the hospital. Instead we set off with Witness, the house cook, to go to the local market for weekly supplies. It is not really the place for tourists so we were lucky she let us tag along. It was very overwhelming – strange sights and smells everywhere. Mostly people just stared at us as we tried to avoid slipping over on all the rotting food on the ground.
This lady was a stall owner and a friend of Witness. She was quite delighted to see us there in the market. Witness also had some other male ‘market brothers’ who were obviously just as delighted to see us because they insisted on buying us a round of cokes. We felt terrible letting them pay. The drinks here are 500TSH (Tanzanian Shillings) which is the equivalent to about 35cents. That is nothing for us but its a much more significant amount to them. They were so proud to buy them for us though – we really couldn’t refuse.
This blog was written by Ashlie Church, Australian medical student in Arusha. To read Ashlie’s full blog, click on the link.
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