A Namibia Christmas

What is it that makes Christmas, well Christmas? The days leading up to my first Christmas in Namibia didn’t really have the “Christmas Spirit”. I chatted with friends who felt similar, trying to solve this puzzle. Was it that we were here in summer hot weather because it is summer here and we’re in Africa? Was it nerves being that it was many of our first Christmases away from family? Perhaps it was the lack of Christmas trees, lights, decorations, carols and egg nog. 

Back in the summer before embarking on this adventure I decided to leave a little surprise for my family back home. I like making jewelry and collages. I was definitely on a budget saving up to leave, but for me leaving gifts for my family was important. They wouldn’t mind the slightest bit if I didn’t get them anything, but I love giving surprises. I enjoy the smiles people get when they receive surprises. So I decided I would make some jewelry and collages, wrap them in Christmas wrapping and hide them at my parents' house where they store their Christmas decorations. This was a mission to say the least. I had a small 4-week job to save up some money over the summer and would spend every single break making this or that. The tricky part being that many of my co-workers were good friends of my mom or had previously worked with either her, my dad, or my sister. Santa Fe is small. They were all in on the secret though. Two of my good friends would help me sneak things to their house to wrap and helped supply wrapping paper. My best friend helped me move a huge bookshelf and venture through storage items so that I could hide the box of presents with my parents' decoration. Over the summer my dad had an injury/surgery so he was off from work, which made it a bit tricky when it came to having time to hide the gifts. I figured if I hid the gifts with my family's decoration they would find them when it came time to decorate… which they did a few weeks ago.  The secret mission was a success.

So as the days leading up to Christmas approached feeling just as any other day a few volunteers decided to get a group of us together to rent at a hotel in Rundu so we could all spend Christmas together as a Namily. A decent sized group all arrived to the Bavaria House the morning of Christmas Eve and the celebrations began. For myself it was a bit of a different Christmas experience. My family was always big on celebrating Christmas Eve and more so relaxed on Christmas Day. On Christmas Eve we socialized about what we have been doing during our break since the All-Volunteer conference in Windhoek. School has not been in session the entire month so we’ve been on “holiday” with lots of time on our hands. Christmas day we jammed some Christmas carols, all made a dish of some sorts, and celebrated with a White Elephant gift exchange. I won was some MTC phone credit, which I was excited about.  I did intend on spending a portion of the day with my host family, but unfortunately when my host brother was in town and offered to drive me to our village I was smack in the middle of cooking my dish and couldn’t leave.

From what I hear a traditional Christmas is spent with your family enjoying drinks and a large feast. Prior to leaving to Rundu I saw that my family had purchased 3 goats to enjoy for the holiday. This was interesting for me to see what would be Christmas dinner sitting in the back of my host dad’s truck. I was told it came out very delicious. Traditionally, the other dishes served along side meat (goat being a local favorite) are potatoes, macaroni, and rice. Definitely not a low carb kind of meal.

Over all it was a nice Christmas. I got to spend it with my Namily and had a lot of fun. I also got to FaceTime with my family back home while they celebrated Christmas Eve, which of coarse brought a smile to my heart. I was able to take some time to meet with my Bunya host mom and sister to give them a little gift I made for them as a Christmas present. I really do care about them.  I’m very much looking forward to giving current host sister the gift I made for her. I feel like I'm lucky to call her my host sister. In Namibia giving Christmas gifts isn’t very popular so it will be great to give her a little Christmas surprise and a taste of American Christmas culture.