Christmas

Christmas was certainly different this year, not bad, just different.

It’s so odd being in 80+ degree weather around this time of the year.  I’m a 4 season kind of gal.  I associate holidays with certain weather!

It’s also odd not being bombarded with Christmas decorations and Christmas sales.

I did see a couple of signs selling goats for Christmas but other than that there was no real obvious sign it was almost Christmas (except for when we were in Nairobi).

I did get invited to spend Christmas with a few other PCVs but I wasn’t in the mood to spend a total of 16 hours on a bus in 2 days.  I also really wanted to be able to video chat with my family and to chat with Dennis on Christmas.

The school’s housemama did invite me to church and lunch with her family but I was still recovering from not feeling well for a few days so I declined (really appreciated the offer).

I spent the day with the school’s 11 cows, several chickens, a few goats, a rooster, and a donkey!

A couple of days before Christmas I decided to make my own Christmas decorations by drawing, coloring, cutting out, and taping Christmas themed stuff to the wall.  I also turned on the little 3 inch plastic light-up Christmas tree that my mom gave me before I headed to Kenya.  I made pancakes for breakfast and  had spaghetti with garlic bread for dinner.  I watched a Kenyan sunset (beautiful).  I also had my first hot bath in a week (no worries, I did bath…I just wasn’t sure how long the kerosene would last me and didn’t want to heat my water every single night because cooking is kind of important).

I spent the day chatting and videoing with family and Dennis.  It was actually a pretty good Christmas week.

Some of my friends back in America even visited my parents which warmed my heart.  I got quite a few “Merry Christmases” from friends on a day they were spending with their family…it meant a lot to me.