Merry Christmas and Happy New Year

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year! I"ll make this short as my sister Sue is making the entry for me, and she"ll have to do lots of editing as my keyboard is acting up.

We hope you are having a wonderful holiday season.

Our Christmas was a lot of fun. I"ll keep this short though due to the lousy keyboard. Highlights included:

Our bus trip out: The first attempt at cramming our family and Saba's onto a minibus to Hamel-Malo with many very aggressive Eritreans resulted in me on board with no one else, no money and all the travel documents. Luckily he stopped and swapped Saba"s family for me. The next attempt got Simon and me onto a very squished bus but it turned out not to be going to the right place. Finally, on the third attempt we got on with no problems and had a great time watching all the middle aged men laughing away (probably about us) along the bumpy road to Amilee and Andy's college.

Our relaxing stay: We spent two days and nights with some very lovely VSO volunteers and Saba's family. Most of our time was spent eating, eating, eating and eating, with some relaxing, drinking (pop for me and the kids, other things for Kim) and talking to fill in the gaps. Amilee and Andy had prepared a delicious spread. We haven't eaten so much in a very long time and it was all vegetarian, despite what you will read in the next paragraph. The kids and men also got in a soccer game at some point, but I was happy to stay with the women and take in Johnny Depp in the film Chocolat which we watched on a school computer.

The goat: George, a VSO participant from Ghana was unaware of the fact that most of use were vegetarians and showed up with a live goat to slaughter late on Christmas Eve. He'd gone to a lot of trouble to ride with it in a goat truck down from Nacfa and had missed most of the celebrations doing so. Luckily he was able to sell it to another teacher.

The wildlife: Other than the goat there were beautiful birds: blue parrot-like things and another bird with a long hooked bill. I guess I should have brought along a bird book.

We also saw what we though was a hyena but it was only the school dog.

The gifts: Small things from everyone (including tea bags, felt markers, candles etc) filled our homemade stockings made of envelopes and duct tape. It was nice to see the kids happy with so little.

The trip home: I woke up with a serious case of turista so was offered a ride back on Nacfa Dave's motorcycle (he's another volunteer and yes, Dad, he does have an extra helmet). It was my first ever motorcylce ride and quite the setting to enjoy, along a river valley between hills, skirting camels and donkeys and almost hitting a cow.

So it was a great Christmas with great friends who helped us to feel a little less homesick. We"re missing you now at this time of the year though and hope you all are wellS

I should go. Thanks to Sue for fixing this up for me.

Take care and Happy New Year.

Barb