Ghost of Christmas Past

I have never been more excited to see the holiday’s come and go.  It seems like back home from Halloween all the way to Russian Christmas, which is some day in January, my family and I are always doing something.  If its counting Christmas lights while drinking a Starbuck’s holiday drink to baking eons of cookies, we are together.  Not this year.  Anyway, I thought I’d share what I did as it started off what would be a two-year tradition. 

A fellow PCV named Jim opened up his home to those wishing to spend the holidays together.  Jim’s site is about an hour west of me and happens to overlook Queen Elizabeth National Park.  Beautiful doesn’t even begin to describe it.  Due to the 15 of us who were attending, a friend of Jim’s who is finishing her thesis here and happened to be back home in America, let us use her home as well.  It sits on a lodge so it came fully equipped with a hot shower (which was conveniently located outside under the stars), a refrigerator, stove, stovetop oven, spices, utensils, and two queen-sized mattresses that were not made from the typical Ugandan foam. 

After a busy Christmas Eve Eve shopping in Mbarara for all the food necessities, along with White Elephant presents, we headed over to Jim’s.  The journey was one of the best I have had in country simply because the five of us were able to fill a private hire for a reasonable price.  We got seats to ourselves, which meant seatbelts!  Upon arriving at Jim’s, we did the only reasonable thing to do.  Watch Elf.

Christmas Eve came the following day and while some went to explore town and eat, I chose to go with Jim to his organization, House of Love, HOL.  HOL is an orphanage that sells awesome crafts and houses some of the sweetest children.  Some of my campers from Camp GLOW stay at HOL so I got to spend time with them playing games, singing camp songs, and taking funny pictures on my laptop.  See below.

Awesome group of HOL Children.  Maureen, the one in the center, was one of my Rhino's at Camp.  

They loved the thermal camera setting!

Grace was so surprised to see us looking like this because, "That's not how it is in real life."

Instead of getting ready with a warm shower to go to church and head out to dinner when evening came, I showered outside under the stormy sky and prepared an Italian dinner of French bread pizza and pasta with marinara sauce.  Our entertainment for the night included decorating the house, paper snowflake making, and an impromptu 90’s music dance party with some Christmas songs sprinkled in between.  This of course was after watching National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation, A Charlie Brown’s Christmas, and Love Actually. 

 MERRY CHRISTMAS morning!  I woke up to no letter from Santa or a tree filled with presents underneath but rather a bright blue sky, and a package from America.  I called my family and opened up the very thoughtful gifts they had sent.  I was once again being spoiled from Mr. and Mrs. Claus.  This somehow compensated for the fact that they were sitting there with me.  After a tearful (at least on my end) conversation, it was time to do what PCV’s do best… Cook.  Food for the day included deviled eggs, my Mamasita’s stuffing (it’s a hit here!), beef skewers, pasta salad, potato salad, fresh vegetables, and pumpkin pie.  The day could not have gone off without the help of the Ugandans who lived around the lodge and helped with the endless amount of dishes and cooking the beef that Jim oh so fabulously marinated.  We ended the evening by watching It’s A Wonderful Life, drinking endless cups of French pressed coffee accompanied with French Vanilla and Hazelnut CoffeeMate, and having a South African chocolate tasting, which a Volunteer had brought back with him from his recent vacation.

The day also included walking around the property, exploring gardens, the gorge that elephants walk upon and monkeys swing in, playing volleyball, and having the first ever Ugandan White Elephant Exchange.  My gift to the lucky winner?  A carved white elephant figurine from HOL (pretty clever), a Twix bar, and mosquito repellant candles, all wrapped in the Christmas paper from home and tied together with American waxed dental floss.  An added bonus.  The gift I received?  A Red Bull, Snickers, and Haribo gummy candy, which I kindly shared with the group. 

Fast forward to New Year’s.  The new group of Education Trainees had finally arrived in country and was doing their language satellite training, which conveniently happened to be a 10-minute taxi ride from me, in the town of another PCV, Brittany.  She kindly opened up her home for New Year’s Eve festivities, which included plenty of food, games, and cocktails made up of coffee spirit sachets.  I prepared faux cheese curds by making fresh pannier then rolling them in breadcrumbs and lightly frying them.  We also prepared a fruit salsa with cinnamon sugar chips, mini meatballs with a spicy dipping sauce, potato salad, and a veggie platter with dip.  The trainees brought over “fireworks”, which were actually your everyday Ugandan birthday candles.  The candles resemble what we know to be sparklers in America.  It is a slight fire hazard for your 4-year olds birthday party.

I should mention the worst part.  A gecko who made its way onto the ceiling lost its footing and fell on my shoulder.  I almost died.  Come on gecko.  Get a grip.

Nonetheless, I anticipated that spending two holiday seasons away from home would bring about a very difficult time.  I’d be lying if I said it was easy but this was an awesome way to spend the season… With new friends and traditions.  Who would have thought that simply reading a book under the African sky, sharing your craziest taxi ride experience, or counting down to 2013 amongst chickens and goats would comprise my holidays.