Tis the Season For Rain?

December 24^th-25^th: Thursday and Friday

Christmas Eve dawned cool and cloudy. The air was misty and damp. That morning we put the ridge cap Jim’s house. We only worked a half day since we had a Christmas Eve service at the church at 4. We sung some Christmas songs converted to Na Karamojong.

After the service Jim and I drove back to Namalu to drop off the school boys and JB. We say Zachary Emeron the pastor for the Namalu church. He greeted us and said they were having a service tomorrow. Then we went to JB’s house were we say his wife, Joyce and his son Losike, who is pretty cute and has a huge head.

That night for dinner we ate nibbles. Kris made an incredible cheese ball. There were cookies and sweets. It was amazing food. My lemonole wasn’t a big hit. I tried to make guacamole but I added to much chili powder and lemon juice. So it first tasted like battery acid, then the heat hit, like a freight train. After we ate we sang a few Christmas carols and then got down to the white elephant gift exchange.

The presents were varied and interesting. Jim and I contributed a dozen eggs, or less, decorated with faces. We drew bandito, a uni-browed man, a Cyclops, Tin Tin, and Harry Potter just to name a few. Our other present was a flatus bag Jim had and some candies. The flatus bag was medical mystery to us. It had a plastic bag and a long tube connected to it. How exactly it was used we could imagine but why we couldn’t figure out.

After the gift exchange Jim and I returned to our house and talked for a bit and read A Cowboy Christmas; a short story my dad has read to our family on Christmas Eve for as long as I can remember.

Sunday morning I rolled out of bed a little after 8 or something and did my devotions and then wandered out into the kitchen to see what was cooking. Nothing was so I made coffee cake while Jim prepared the salad for Christmas dinner that night. After the coffee cake came out we made eggs (3 runny yokes, I non-runny yoke) and sat down to a lovely Christmas breakfast. Jim whips out my present (a tusker shirt) so I grabbed the bag and tissue paper and quickly wrapped his (a Tanzania jersey).

After breakfast we headed over to the Wrights where we met Leah and Ben and along with Martha and Rachel we set out in the van for Namalu. We stopped at the clinic first and picked up Moses and Susan. We pulled up to the tin clad church of Namalu which was blasting American songs out of a scratchy boom box. The church service began with praying and singing. As the time passed more and more people showed up. It reminded me so much of Tanzania. All the singing and the drums playing and the choirs coming up and singing and they way people dressed even. The service lasted well over two hours. After the service we were invited over to the pastors house for an amazing meal where we wee introduced to his family, all 11 of them.

We drove back to the mission. It had continued to rain off and on all morning and although the rain had stopped it remained cloudy and cooler. I put on my new Christmas cloths (Tusker shirt) and went with the Wrights over to the huge dance at the catholic mission/school just up the road. There were probably 300 or more people around. Everyone decked out in their Christmas best. However we had only been there a few minutes when the dancing broke up and everyone left because it looked like rain.

We went back and Jim and I had Moses, Susan, and Albert over to play Mexican train as it poured rain outside. We played until Jim and I had to go to Christmas dinner with the mission. We had delicious food and watched the Christmas caper with the penguins from Madagascar again. Then Jim and I came back and the clinic guys came over again and we played some more. And the rain continued.