Update: Christmas and New Years

Now that 2011 is upon us, and the holidays are through, we wanted to quickly share with you how the Lord blessed us this Christmas and New Years.

As you may recall from our last post, we planned on spending Christmas at our site, which was a wonderful experience. To prepare for the festive holiday, we hung up solar-powered snowflake lights and drew a tree on our mud wall with chalk. Then on market day, which happened to be Christmas Eve, we bought one hundred oranges for the grand total of two U.S. dollars to give away as gifts. Later in the afternoon, we were just starting to feel melancholy when our village pastor sent us an unexpected present. Imagine if someone cut a square from the side of pig – this is what we found in the bag, with a layer of skin, fat, meat, and bone all included. Fortunately, Joye’s mother had recently sent us a portable charcoal grill, so in the classic American tradition, we had a delicious pork rib barbeque on Christmas Eve.

After dark, we heard the sound of a tire iron on pipe and knew it was time for church. The conditions of the Christmas Eve service were very much like that described in the hymns: chilly, still, and dark; only one flashlight lit the small chapel. The service lasted for two hours and was followed by dancing to the drums in celebration of Christ’s birth. We didn’t last until midnight (as some did), but we certainly put in our fair share. Now to those familiar with the American church-going customs, you may think this was it. In America, you go to church on Christmas Eve but spend the actual day with your family. This is not the case here. We were expected, and lovingly conceded, to go to two more services Christmas day – one in the morning and another in the late afternoon. Furthermore, in between, we went around and greeted our friends, handing out oranges to mark the occasion. Though our village in mostly Muslim, everyone was welcoming and willing to recognize our holiday – even the village imam (Muslim religious leader) accepted his oranges with a delighted grin on his face before bestowing us with a dozen blessings.

However, we also secured some time to ourselves. In the early morning, we enjoyed a sumptuous pancake and crepe breakfast (complete with Michigan maple syrup), and periodically decorated our tree with multi-colored sticky notes with sentimental messages. Finally, at night, under cover of darkness, we watched A Christmas Carol with a bowl of fresh popcorn. It was a delicate mix of interacting with our village while still taking time for ourselves.

For New Years though, we decided to take it all for ourselves. Since very few Malian men are willing to do any work during the holidays (other than drink tea), we thought it would be a perfect time to take a miniature vacation. We will write a whole post on our trip, but in short, we celebrated New Years with eight hours of bus travel, followed by some lovely French cuisine. Finally, below falling asleep anticlimactically at 11pm, we drank some nasty white wine and played Where’s Waldo. Then, on the first day of 2011, we started our hike in Mali’s most beautiful region. Now, having just returned, we are heading back to our village re-energized and ready to get to work. Hopefully, our villagers feel the same. ☺

Lastly, a BIG thank you to all those who sent us Christmas packages (some of which we just received today)! It is truly a blessing to know that we have so much support from family and friends around the world. We know how difficult it can be to put together and send a package, especially around the busy holiday season, so to those that did, a heart-felt thank you.

Happy New Year! -James & Joye