I would really know to be honest; it’s 25C here, I’m wearing short and a tee-shirt and still sweating, there are no Christmas lights, there are no Christmas decorations, there is no Christmas shopper buzz, there aren’t even any Christmas carols and it still gets bright at 5:30 and dark at 19:00. If that sounds negative (and I bet it does) then I have mislead you. I don’t mourn these things. I miss you all greatly and my family even more so but I am not unhappy now. I am in fact happy. Maybe not very happy but happy none the less. I have chosen this path and I accept it’s differences. I am loving the fresh mangos and the OMG 100% pure mango juice that now accompanies lunch. Nero mango juice shall never pass my lips again I tell you, pleeuuwkkkk! To my mothers amusement I’m sure, I have been baking Christmas cakes with Mabel. Mixing by hand with a wooden spoon type implement in a plastic bowl usually used to wash clothes etc in Ireland. We line the cake tins with cut and buttered empty paper sugar bags. No greaseproof here darlings! My guardian angel and all your good karma have resulted in a random meeting with a woman from Dublin last week. She has very kindly invited me to join her family in Monze for Christmas Day. So I will have a family Christmas even if it’s an adopted family rather than my family. You cannot believe how much of a relief this is. The two days I dreaded most before coming here were Christmas Day and the 21st March (when I leave my momentous 20’s behind me). I hear through the grape vine that Europe is again
experiencing very cold conditions. I do feel for you all, honest! Especially while I sit outside in the cool shade of a tree sipping freshly juiced mangos. Seriously though, I know people are travelling at this time and I would be a very pissed off camper if I was stranded in London for the holidays. But please, please, please darlings do travel safely! Believe me, I know how important it is to get home or to a loved one but not at the risk of your own life. So please drive/travel carefully and stay safe.I’ve
been thinking about my first 8 and ½ weeks here as I thought about what to write here. The wondrous feeling of adventure, as I first stepped onto African soil in 24C heat at six in the morning. The image of three little black kids sitting on a fence next to an abandoned railway line with the line running behind them into the shimmering distance; viewed from the window of my bus returning from that weekend in Lusaka. The total happiness I felt eating fruit in the back of the trunk sandwiched between 5 nurses all chattering away and laughing after my first day out in the villages with HBC. And the thousand other memories that I look forward to boring you senseless with upon my return next year.So I want to take this opportunity to wish you and your loved ones a very, very Merry Christmas and a Fabulous New Year. I look forward to seeing you in person again at the end of the year and hope that between now and then, life will smile on you. But if life doesn’t, then feel free to give it the two fingers from me. Oh, and if anyone meets Santa Claus on the way, can you ask him to redeliver my presents, pretty please?
Yours,
A slightly disorientated, almost Christmas-y David
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