Ugandan Christmas!

It’s been an amazing and eventful week, so much so that it’s been suggested I break this down into a mini-series of blogs, maybe even one for each day. Don’t worry, I’ll save the overly detailed versions of these stories for later, probably when I see you in person and you inadvertently make me realise I haven’t yet told you the finer details of a long Christmas speech by the RDC (I don’t know what that stands for but that’s what people called him) that included festive themes like the constant threat of terrorism at any group event you are gonna visit over Christmas, neck-tie wearers being philanderers (cue embarrassment for the two people present wearing ties) and the likelihood of your child actually being fathered by your neighbour (this was at a school’s Christmas party) or other beautiful little moments of the week. In keeping with the topsy-turvy nature of a Christmas where temperatures exceed 35°, I think I’m gonna go backwards through the week!

Today has been lovely. As you’d hope from a country where English is the sole official language, Boxing Day is loved up here and is a fully-fledged public holiday. I managed to break my record for latest lie-in in Uganda as I’d stayed overnight at BJH (which is free of roosters (well, nearly)) and slept until 10:24… poor public holiday behaviour, I’m sure. Anyway, the day’s progressed at a leisurely pace with cards (yes hearts!), snacks, Mr Popper’s Penguins (great film) and a nice chat with Min and Lesley.

Christmas Day began much earlier (as my inner child thinks is appropriate), sparked into life by serial crowing from a particularly excited rooster (I counted 8 cockle-doodle-do’s from one chicken before finally giving up on sleep). I treated myself to a breakfast of Weetos (which is actually extravagant given their price here) and enjoyed a steady morning before heading on to church.

Now, I love going to church on Christmas Day in the UK. However, this is partially cause I know the service is guaranteed to be less than an hour, give me an opportunity to see church friends on Christmas Day, include carols and mince pies and be followed by Christmas lunch. Only the last of these was true for me yesterday and I did struggle at times not to leave early from the three hour service (which would have been three and a half if I’d turned up on time). The dilemma is that the end of the service was great (someone got saved and lots of people got prayed for), it was just put back by a few things I wouldn’t have included if I’d set the schedule… Anyway, Christmas lunch was great times with char-grilled chicken, chapatti, rice, spaghetti (that Christmas classic), beef and the now traditional Stoney (ginger beer). This was followed by present giving and it seemed I’d done okay at guessing at what makes a decent Ugandan Christmas present.

Guns for small children, ideal.

Phoning home was a great moment of the day and I got to speak to lots of the family despite it being dispersed around the UK; it was particularly nice to talk to the parents who only got back from three months in Mozambique earlier last week, but the rest of them were quite cool as well ;).

Company was pretty good too!

The third part of Christmas was dinner at Stuart and MJ’s who seemed to have take compassion on us unfortunate young men who were away from home on Christmas. Dinner included bbq-ed turkey and ham as well as smoked oyster stuffing (boom) and finished off with Christmas pudding and brandy butter. I hope that previous sentence doesn’t damage the amount of sympathy you have for me missing British Christmas too much… It was a lovely evening with their family and a few other guests.

After dinner, us boyos went back to BJH for a mini-round of present giving of our own. Dan got me a very exciting Ugandan shirt (which I can’t wait to wear whenever people start forgetting I went to Uganda for 7 months!!!) and Sam bought me a chicken! After much thought (apparently 2 days worth), Sam gave it the name Bernadette (which is obviously a beautiful name). Unfortunately, it now looks like it is actually a he… Looks like it’s gonna be a Berny instead.

Modelling my shirt, holding Berny

I spent all of Friday shopping for presents. Well, actually, I spent part of the morning watching 24 (season 3) and finished shopping at 5, but you know what I mean. One subtle difference between Ugandan and British Christmas is that the Friday was way busier in town than the Saturday (which I’m aware I missed out) as loads of people go back to ‘the village’ for Christmas. Thus town on Saturday was comparatively silent. The other weird thing about Ugandan Christmas shopping is the streets as more busy due to increased consumers but also loads of people who’ve decided to set up one-day only businesses (typically selling high-quality tinsel) right in the middle of the pavement.

Don't they look nice!

Thursday ended up being my last day a work before Christmas and included genuine work as well as a staff meeting where everyone got presents from the Dr/the Hospice, followed by a staff photo which took appropriately long to organise.

I spent Wednesday with large numbers of children due to me finally going to visit Lulwanda Children’s Home (where Natalie works) at the start of the day before going to Christmas party for the amazing school I visited in mid-September (http://pgladwell.blogspot.com/2011/09/much-to-my-amusement-life-seems-to-be.html ). The children’s home was wonderful to see and it was nice to see some of the kids I knew before from swimming. There are over 100 kids who live at the home and then they go to a school run by the home along with other local children who are also invited. However, the kids have been on holiday for quite a while so I got to see them in a more relaxed context. It was great to see these kids who often have very sad backgrounds so clearly feeling completely at home in the surrounds and with each other, living in a large and loving community and great to be able to play and interact with these kids.

Unfortunately, I got caught up in playing and ended up arriving at the party just after the dances, right in time for the speeches (including the one above). However, I was still in time for the visit of Father Christmas. It was great to see the kids generally so happy, but also to see the amount that the local community (who had a very large and noisy presence at the party) valued and appreciated the work done by Child of Hope. It was interesting to see the two organisations side by side as both work for children but the backgrounds of these kids means that the best response to their needs takes completely different forms.

It's really him!

Some of you realised from the previous blog that I was a bit grumpy last Monday and I succeeded in carrying this through to Tuesday in the form of having less patience than usual. However, it seems that I’m better at some aspects of my job when I’m tired. I was introduced to a local government accountant who “has been really helpful” but then I realised that in actuality she’d been a real pain over annoyingly small things. I may not have been wholly friendly toward her over a few things which meant I got to speak to the DHO (District Health Officer) which turned out to be surprisingly productive! Plus, they gave us free things (I can’t claim this was directly related to the disagreements but it certainly chronologically followed the whinging).

Generally it’s been a good week. There have been moments where the lack of Christmas pies (and family of course) has been on my mind but generally there have been good times here. I’m really grateful to God for the quality friends and family that He’s given me here who’ve brought fun and cheer to this time and have made it a very different but still enjoyable Christmas.

God is faithful.