Kenyan Christmas

If I had to sum up Christmas this year I’d say it was exhausting but fun, an absolute mixture of stress, tension and memorably beautiful moments. Maybe that’s how Christmas feels for a lot of people, or so I’ve heard, but I come from a small family – it’s normally quiet

I’ve also been in the 30 degree heat and without the ridiculous annual build up to the season you’ve all been enjoying or enduring in the UK over the last few weeks. Kenyans celebrate but without all the added faff it seems. Instead of a Christmas dinner it’s just “special foods”. I guess those who can afford it slaughter a goat but there’s plenty who can’t afford to. Some people put up decorations but it’s not compulsory. Like the many other bank holidays they have here not everybody bothers to take the day off, certainly the Matatus were running in order to make the most of the tourist season.

My brother Matthew had a great time sightseeing, fixing computers, helping in the kitchen, and getting sunburnt and generally squeezing the most out of his 12 days here. He was my brother at his holiday best and I’m so glad he came to stay I don’t think I could have got through the time without him. (Unfortunately the reason for his spontaneous visit was due to his being made redundant, the 2nd person I know in the UK to have lost their job in the last month. I look forward less and less to having to go home and find a job…) I was still coming across some underlying problems at Mwamba of bad management and miscommunication which were getting me down. I wondered if I should just take off with Rachel in the New Year. I haven’t signed a contract with Arocha, there’s very little accountability and supervision here so the temptation to abandon them was huge. I seemed to have the same song going round my head for 2 weeks non stop and even lost my appetite somewhat, very unusual for me, it seemed like there was never a moment to relax.

Matthew and I have very different temperaments I’ve learnt that he doesn’t fit as much into a day as I do. So for the first two days I thought I’d just let him adjust to the heat while I tried to finish off some work but doing anything on the computer by this time was impossible. If there weren’t guests to book in or out there were children to supervise or endless clearing up to do. At one stage Christmas looked like being quiet and a bit dull this year, now as well as the guests who’d pre-booked, ‘Walk-ins’ were turning up, Mercy had come to house-sit for the Kigens, Rachel had decided to stay a bit longer and Suzanne hadn’t gone home. As Matthew grew more relaxed and into his holiday I felt myself getting tenser by the day with this whirlwind of people and noisy children around me.

Matthew was enthusiastic enough to get up at 5am one morning and the 2 of us went bird watching with Rachel. There were disappointingly few birds that day but I enjoyed, more than I thought I would creeping around the forest on the trail of the few we heard trying to spot them. The next day Rachel achieved an amazing feat of organisation and persuaded the entire centre, guests and staff to come out on a boat and go snorkelling including those who didn’t know how to swim and never went near the water. There must have been 20 of us and the boatmen’s promises about life jackets and equipment for everyone were woefully unfulfilled. As a teenager on Scripture Union holidays I had water safety drummed into me but on this day I had to put aside my horror at seeing Keziah in a life jacket that blatantly didn’t fit her and Chiko without one at all and relying on someone to keep a firm hold of her so she didn’t jump head first into the water in order not to be left out. It was glorious chaos but Rachel’s generosity extended to making sure everyone got a turn in the water including the non-swimmers and we all made it back alive in the end. A few weeks ago we found an old instamatic camera in Henry’s office with a supposedly waterproof case so I used up the film taking pictures of everyone, I’ve yet to find out if they’ll develop but I hope so.

On Christmas Eve we went out snorkelling again with Rachel. It was the calmest most over cast morning I’ve seen in Kenya and with the tide out the sea was absolutely still. We must have been in the water for about 2 hours before I decided to swim back to shore. It was only when I got out that I realised how tired I was but it was well worth it. As well as a Blowfish we saw a black Lionfish which we didn’t even know existed – I could hear Rachel’s screams of delight even with my head in the water. Not what my normal Christmas Eve.

Later that day we found some Christmas decorations in the outhouse and selected a plant from the garden to dress as a tree. Keziah was effective in making paper chains and getting the adults who were milling around to help. Everybody joined in and Aaron even set up his ipod and speakers with some festive music. It even began to feel a bit Christmasy.

In the evening Rachel, who was still in dynamic organising mode suggested the volunteers go across the road to a local midnight mass service. I’ve been to a couple of churches before now in Kenya, mostly organised along similar lines to western ones but this was entirely outside, mostly children and somewhat disorganised with plenty of singing that didn’t seem to have an end point. It was clear they didn’t often have Wazungu visitors and even offered to conduct the service in English for our sake. Of course being westerners we felt suitably embarrassed at this and refused, saying it was important that the children could understand what was being said. To be honest I didn’t get much out of it after this, not being able to follow the preaching but it felt good to be in church at Christmas, not something I thought I’d get to do this year. We stayed until a power cut plunged the whole church into darkness and then left discretely.

On Christmas day Matthew volunteered to stuff the chickens that Lispa had bought on the condition that we would prepare them. He found a recipe on the internet and adapted it so that it could be made with the maize meal flour that Kenyan’s use to make Ugali – their staple dish. It was a total experiment but a success and went down very well with our guests who were mostly Kenyan. After cooking we went to the beach en masse, even Lispa was persuaded to leave the kitchen for a while and I got some more great memories to treasure on my camera. Coming back we found yet more walk-ins who’d just arrived wondering if there was room – on Christmas day?! I was very tired by this time and about to tell them where to get off when Aaron diplomatically suggested there was room to camp. By lunch I’d given up trying to work out who everybody was (I counted yesterday actually and I think there were 30 of us in total including 2 lots of campers and Robin and her friend staying on the roof. There were 5 children aged 4 or under and 6 different nationalities represented) but we had enough food to go round. In the evening Matthew moved one of the computers from the office into the dining room and some of us watched a DVD.

Matthew had to fly home the next day from Mombassa. We’d planned to walk around Fort Jesus during the day but were so tired when we got there we changed our minds. Instead we holed up in an Indian restaurant for a couple of hours, enjoying the lassies and air conditioning and looking at our photos from the last few days. It didn’t feel like Boxing Day. I was worried that I’d feel lonely after I left Matthew at the airport but I think I was too tired to feel anything. Despite the bumpy road and lack of oxygen I fell asleep in the Matatu on the way back. When I got “home” some of the guests had left and new ones had arrived in their place. I considered introducing myself but decided instead to get an early night. It was nice to have my room to myself again. It felt like we'd successfully done Christmas.

The photos you Matthew carving the chickens he stuffed, the 2 of us on the beach and cooking with Keziah.