Eid Mowbrook!

Merry Christmas, Happy Eid and Happy New Year from Keren! The holiday season has begun and so far it’s been great. We hope that everyone back home is well and enjoying the abundance of snow that you have. We are very jealous of you. The closest we came to snow was one night, walking home from my friend Saba’s. It was really dark out and the crunching of the sand under my feet almost felt like I was walking on very cold snow. We are really looking forward to seeing some of the real stuff again in a year.

In the last blog, I promised I’d write about Maya’s surprise birthday present. Well, her 16^th birthday was last Friday and it was a big success. We began on Thursday, by heading off to Keren’s fanciest hotel in the early afternoon. Maya wanted a night of luxury for her birthday present, so the two of us began with an afternoon of watching satellite t.v. from our comfortable beds stopping only to take long, hot baths. I won’t go into great detail about the state of the tub after my bath. Imagine how much old skin stays on your body over 4 months of nothing but quick sponge baths and you may have a good idea of what a might happen after a good soak in very hot water followed by scrubbing with a loofa. Disgusting bathtub rings aside, we had a wonderful stay there. Kim and the boys joined us for a movie and a bath (what other Canadian mom can honestly say that her 11 and 14 year old boys get excited about taking baths?). Then we headed down for a great pizza dinner. The boys went home afterwards and Maya and I stayed up for one more movie before falling asleep.

The next day, we headed home and started preparing for Maya’s party. She had planned everything and did much of the cooking, though Kim helped by making his peanut sauce and I made the cakes and blended up bananas and guavas into a thick juice (tsmak). Part way through our preparations, we were interrupted by Maya’s surprise present. Adem arrived on the back of a camel, followed by an older Tigre man who was leading a second, somewhat grumpier camel. I’d arranged for Adem to borrow his uncle’s camel, but when his uncle didn’t show up, Adem went down to the market and convinced this man to let us ride his camels for 30 nakfa (about 2 dollars). The kids spent the next hour being led around the compound on the back of the friendly camel (we decided to leave the mean one alone to munch on the leaves on our guaza tree.) First, following Adem’s advice, I served the man some taita and peanut sauce. I think I did all the right things: pouring water over his hands before and after the meal, insisting several times to make sure he got enough to eat, (which was plenty), and offering him tea after his meal. Then I joined the camel rides and finally got the courage to get on myself. The problem is, camels are really tall animals. You get on when they sit down on the ground, but when they stand up and sit down for you to get off, they tilt at quite a steep angle and you have to hang on tight. I rode backwards on the camel with Lukas in front and that kept me fairly well anchored in the saddle. It was lots of fun, except when Adem led us under our thorn covered gaba tree and I ripped up my shirt and my arms which I was using to protect my head.(Barbara was scared shirtless). The kids had a great time though. It was the most original present I’ve ever given anyone and it was a big hit!

Maya ended her birthday by celebrating with about 10 of her buddies: eating taita then playing a game of “Fear Factor” that she’d organized (the show’s a big hit here), then finally dancing up a storm in the living room. One of her friends is from India and her music and dance style were the most popular. Lukas thoroughly enjoyed the activities though he preferred to watch and couldn’t be convinced to dance.

The rest of our weekend was spent celebrating Christmas. On Saturday, Kim and I had to work in the morning, but a few VSO friends and the kids spent the day preparing a fancy meal. We had a nice night together and stuffed ourselves on peanut loaf, pureed Swiss chard, pumpkin,boiled cabbage and lemon cake. We celebrated Christmas Eve at the VSO office, where we had another huge supper (the highlight: pyroghies with wild Polish mushroom prepared by our Polish VSO volunteer), a gift exchange, Christmas carols and dancing. We had a nice Christmas morning at our friend Mel’s. She’d saved some goodies from her Christmas packages and had made us all stockings stuffed with lots of Christmas goodies. There was a huge lunch planned at the fancy Intercontinental Hotel, but our family was too full on the last few days of feasting to bother spending the small fortune it would have cost us to go, so we went to a small Italian restaurant instead. Simon stayed home with a bad stomach. I guess the five cokes he’s had at the VSO party had taken their toll. (Cokes are currently imported from Sudan and are a minor luxury here, so our kids go a bit overboard when they’re available for free.) We spent the rest of the time relaxing at Mel’s house. The kids overdosed on a million episodes of “Friends” which they watched on her laptop.

We came back to Keren on Tuesday. Kim and I had two days of teaching and now we have a week off for Eid al Adha. This Eid celebrates Abraham’s willingness to sacrifice his son for God. (For those who recognize this story from the Bible, yes there is a lot of history shared between the two faiths.) This Eid involves pilgrimages to Mecca and the slaughtering of millions of sheep. We’ve been invited to many friends’ homes and will probably put on several kilos by the end of the week. We’ll also be celebrated New Year’s Eve. Almost the entire group of VSO volunteers will be arriving in Keren this weekend for the event. Last year, we were in bed well before midnight, but I think that this time around we may actually be able to stay up to welcome in the new year.

I guess that’s all for now. Wishing you all a very happy New Year.

Barb