Christmas Day and Boxing Day

25/12/09 & 26/12/09

You would think with the festive season offering so much to talk about that I would have been able to provide you with an interesting blog for each day. Alas, there is no such joy this Christmas.

This is my first Christmas away from home, and I have to say that I have found it to be a very odd experience. On the Sunday before I departed for Africa, my family had a fake Christmas, whereby we pretended that it was Christmas, when in fact it wasn’t. I know what you think; such heresy should not go unpunished. Apparently it didn’t. Real Christmas was a very lonely day for me. It was almost a karmic response for having an early Christmas.

The day started the same as any other. I woke up at around 7:30 and had breakfast. I toyed with the idea of texting people at home but it was very early and I don’t think they would appreciate being woken up at such an unearthly hour. After a short while of reading and plodding around the garden, I walked up to the house. Professor Maliyamkono greeted me and asked me if I was still interested in going to church. (As far as I can remember I have told you about the special mass that was going to be said for me?!) Not wanting to disappoint, and not wanting to seem like a heathen in such a religious country I plodded along. However, when the car turned down to head towards the town I realised that once again the plans had changed.
Instead of going to the seminary with the nun (Profs Sister in law) we were heading into the centre of Bukoba to the Catholic church down there. The church was an open sided, tin-roofed, barn-like, shelter. Do not be deceived, when you walk into the church it is like walking into the world of Sony Bravia TVs. You enter the church and you’re greeted with a wash of colour, waves of reds, blues, greens, purples, pinks, organs, yellow, and many other Dulux inventions. Also, the sheer number of people is something that should be noted. My parents parish in Southwick consists of about 40-50 relatively ancient people who regularly attend church. The number of people that I saw must have been over 300. It was packed worse than the average Dada (local bus services, mainly Toyota Hiace’s holding about 20 people...not bad for a car designed to hold 8 or 9).

The choir slowly started to filter into the church and their number alone rivalled that of those in Southwick. The choir members were dressed in a blue, gold and white robe, and I couldn’t help be reminded of an American Gospel Choir. The signing and the music was absolutely fantastic, I would recommend anyone who is in this area, whether or not you are religious, to go and listen to the music. Halfway through the service (so about an hour in), I noticed that occasional members of the choir had subtly produced a percussion instrument. It was as if they had had to sneak them into the church, but it was fantastic and added even more to the experience.
Naturally the mass was in Swahili so I didn’t really know what was going on, and I only managed to pick up the odd word here and there. However, in spite of that, the experience was wonderful and I really enjoyed the singing and the colours. I wonder why England seems so dull in comparison?

After a quick jaunt to the market to see if there was any meat on sale; me and Charles headed back to the house. I spent the majority of the rest of the day watching The Matrix on my laptop...what a wild Christmas I had!

My parents and brothers called and I spent about an hour on the phone to them, talking about the different things that I have been doing and the different things that they have been doing. I felt like one of the extended family that we used to call each Christmas, where everyone would have their turn on the phone to say their bit and then to move on to talk to the next person. It was good talking to the family though but it made me realise how much I am missing the Christmas period at home. Mustn’t grumble though.

My mum had put a couple presents into my bag before I left so I took my time opening them up. There was a stuffed snowman teddy thingy which is cool and is currently sitting by my pillow, and there were a couple of microfiber towels which are extremely practical. In a nutshell that was my Christmas Day. A bit lonely, but a good experience nonetheless.


Boxing Day (Second Christmas)

Boxing Day is affectionately known as the ‘second Christmas’ in certain circles of Tanzanian society. All along the streets the children are in groups showing off their new clothes or portable radios. These seem to be the main gifts from what I can ascertain. I am fairly sure that the local present giving is quite a different thing to the European and American tradition. I wonder if people still get unwanted gifts...like the cliché knitted jumper.

Anyway, I mustn’t get side tracked here. The morning was exceptionally wet. From before 6 a.m. I could hear the rain pounding on the roof of the rotunda. The rain was borderline violent for the best part of 7 hours. The plan for the day was to visit Professor Maliyamkono at his village home. He had left for there on Christmas morning and he was getting picked up by Salum in the afternoon of the following day. So I was invited to see his village.

The village, Kilate, was about an hours’ drive away, but this way mainly due to the condition of the roads. The main road to Kilate was quite rough but partially tarmac so it was bearable. The rain had left little lake-like puddles on the road and in places we had to drive on the other side of the road so that we could get by okay. By this point in the day the rain had started to ease off and the clouds were beginning to break up a little bit. We stopped to drive a woman to the bus station as public transport is limited on Boxing Day and we also stopped to pick up a priest. The priest, as it happens, was Professor Maliyamkono’s cousin. Occasionally on the road to Kilate we would stop so that I could take some pictures. The scenery was breathtaking and Salum knew some very good stops for me to get pictures of the amazing vistas.

When we arrived at Kilate, we took the car down a very tight ‘road’, although path may serve to describe the way better, and eventually arrived at a small box of a house. This was the house that Professor Maliyamkono grew up in. Surrounding the house there were banana trees, coffee plants, avocado trees, sweet corn plants and a whole host of other horticultural treats. The family had a pet cat, which had just given birth to the tiniest kitten ever. This was the first time that I had noted that a pet was kept for no other purpose than to have some entertainment. In a shed which was fairly close to where the cat seemed to loiter, there was the soft grunting of a number of pigs. It seems as though Professor Maliyamkono’s sister (the current person residing in the house) had quite a small holding. However, when I asked if the produce was ever sold I was told that there was very little financial gain from growing all of the crops and tending to the pigs. This surprised me, but when I gave it more thought it became apparent that the family was virtually self sufficient so less money would be needed to go out to feed the family.

We drove from the village to a peninsula that juts out into Lake Victoria. From the peninsula you could see the border with Uganda and again some absolutely stunning scenery. The Professor pointed out to me a couple of people who were at the waters’ edge having an ‘elephant shower’. This was the first time that I had heard that expression. Apparently it means that people stand at the side of the lake, river, etc. naked, and throw water over each shoulder – not unlike the way that elephants wash. It made sense to me!

In the trees on the opposite side of the road we were being watched by a couple of monkeys. I am not sure what type they were but I quickly ran off to get my zoom lens to take their photo. Once I was positioned and ready to shoot both monkeys started to run down the tree into the cover of the rocks. Apparently the presence of a camera looks similar to that of a gun to monkeys. Or so I was told. I may have just spooked them by getting a little bit too close.

We headed back to the village and had a cup of tea and some fresh corn. A random combination I grant you but still good nonetheless. The return journey to Bukoba was another sightseeing adventure for me. The Professor was pointing out the various places of interest. We passed over a couple of bridges that his father had built, or helped to build. At about the halfway point we had driven to an area where a memorial was placed to show where the first Catholic Missionaries had landed in Tanzania. I sat in the car changing my lens so I could try and get a photo of it, and when I looked up I noticed that there were about 15 children surrounding the car, particularly my window. They were very excited to see a mzungu and they all ran away when I got out of the car. The Professor shouted something at the kids; I assume something along the lines of ‘Do you want your picture taken?’ – At this they all lined up at a tree. I took a couple of snaps of them and then showed them on the cameras LCD screen. They were all fascinated and got very excited and noisy for the situation. I felt like I was very popular, but in hindsight I was nothing more than a circus attraction for the kids.

The rest of the journey back was very mundane in relation to that experience but it can’t all be so exciting. At the house the Professor and I had a discussion about his current projects and about the wonderful view of Lake Victoria. Dusk doesn’t last long on the Equator so we had a sit down and a beer and then started talking about the potential of life on other planets as the stars came out. All in all it was a good day, and it was made much better as the rain had stopped in the afternoon and the clouds had cleared. It was a great experience to see the village and I am sure that it will be one of the lasting memories of the trip.

So that is my tale of the festive season, what did you get up to?