A mix of Christmas Traditions

When part of 4 different families come together for a holiday each has their own set of traditions. Lori’s family has chili for dinner on Christmas Eve; so she got her grandmother’s recipe and made it for us. Only the measurement for the chili powder got mixed up and it was incredibly spicy. Lori and I could barely finish our first bowl and Eric was sweating. Nyamo & Chun, some of the Gambian MEHDA staff, enjoyed it immensely; it was the first thing we cooked that Nyamo didn’t have to add hot sauce to. Then we had our final Advent service and ended with singing Christmas Hymns by candle light. Then we got up early on Christmas day to open presents and had a breakfast casserole and Eric’s family’s Hard Cake. We took the long walk to church for the Christmas service that didn’t have a whole lot to do with Christmas and later went in to the city to visit friends. We ended the evening by celebrating with our compounds and sharing with them a little bit of why we celebrate Christmas. At Lori and my compound we made a fire and cooked hot chocolate to share with everyone. We passed out candy and cookies as well as Christmas cards. We did have to explain to many of the adults that the card did not have any money in it as they expected; but instead we had bought a large (50kg) bag of rice for the compound to share.

The temp made it up to 102 on Christmas Eve

Lori's Chili Dinner

Eric Sweating from the Chili

Our last Advent Service

All of the presents on Christmas Morning

Jim and his Christmas tree

Handing out candy to the kids

Singing and Dancing

Serving Hot Chocolate or Chocolate Tea

Making Cookies

It wouldn’t be Christmas with out freshly baked cookies; so our team got together and made our favorite kinds. They included: Chocolate No-Bakes, Chocolate Crinkles, Chocolate Chip, Chocolate Mint Brownies, Monster Cookies, and Russian Tea Cakes. The only trouble with that was we had to bake 5 batches of cookies in an oven that can only hold 1 tray. But after a few hours in a very warm kitchen and an interesting system of cooling and storing we had a great supply of holiday cookies to enjoy. Eric wasn’t so sure that they were going to last until Christmas but he was able to have enough self-control to make sure we still had some left to eat on Christmas day. Lori and I also held a few aside to share with our compound when we celebrated with them.

No-Bake cooking

Eric's Chocolate Crinkles

Who can resist raw cookie batter?

The passing of the cocoa powder

Gary & Denise's tiny kitchen and oven

Our cooling system

We all enjoyed the evening

A Gambian Funeral

This past week I had the unfortunate experience of a death in my compound. Mama was the oldest woman in the compound. She was such a sweet woman. She was always eager to have anyone come sit and chat with her. And she often had the children around with her. She never did much besides sit or lie on the front porch of her house and enjoy the company of anyone who was around. But she had apparently been sick for a few days and on Thursday she ate her lunch in the afternoon and went in to rest and never woke up. They say it was high blood pressure or something of that sort.

When we arrived back at our compound that evening there were many men sitting and praying outside and the women were inside crying and wailing. We went inside and just sat with them for a long time. We woke early on Friday morning to the sound of the women pounding. The women had a lot of work to do to prepare for the funeral. It seemed like the entire village plus the village from where Mama had been married at came to the funeral. Again, the men sat outside conversing and praying while the women would go inside to offer their sympathy and then they also congregated outside. Many of the younger women took turns pounding the rice that would later be used. Here the family and compound has to provide food for everyone who came. So many of the people who attended would come bearing gifts of rice or money to help with that. The service was much like a funeral at home where a few of the men talked about Mama and the things she had done. Then afterwards the men went to the grave site while the women had to stay. There will be days in the next week when people come to be with the family.

It’s hard to know all the correct things to do in situations like this after being here only 2 months. I wish I could express my feelings of compassion to them in a way they would understand.