Give me Christmas

I'll start by saying "Merry Christmas" to everyone. Zambia is a predominantly Christian country, but Christmas isn't necessarily universally celebrated. To wit: Zambia has the highest number of Jehovah's Witnesses in world, and from what the guards (who are all well-read Watchtowers) have told me, Christmas isn't celebrated in their church. Another big church in Zambia is the Seventh-Day Adventists; again no Christmas. However, the Catholics, the Bread of Life, the United Church of Zambia, the Evangelical Church of Zambia, the New Apostolic, and so forth were certainly celebrating the day.

I avoid church on Christmas just because Zambian churches really have no schedule. If the pastor gets the spirit rolling, he might preach for two or three hours; I have a large posterior and expenses are definitely spared on bench width, so I qualify excessive time at church as a sanctioned form of torture. Christmas really bends the clock; I left home for the fields this morning around 9:30, and saw a number of people headed for their churches; when I came back around 17:30, they were just leaving.

The other reason I avoid church is that I miss home a lot at Christmas. I miss the family, the snow, church (mercifully limited to under two hours), and especially the food. When talking to my cousins on the phone today, I had to beg them to stop describing the dinner plans. Just to hear the words "prime rib", "London broil", and "salmon" makes me want to crawl under a rock and weep. Don't get me wrong ... nshima [the stiff porridge made from maize or cassava or millet or sorghum that is food in Zambia] is fine, I eat it daily and enjoy it well enough; it does fill you up. However, I'm able to countenance nshima by pretending no other foods exist, a delusion that is supported by the fact that in Senanga, there is no other food.

To be fair and balanced [to paraphrase Fox News], I don't mind that Zambians have yet to turn their Festive [Holiday] season into the cacophony of consumerism that we now consider acceptable back home. There is no "Black Friday", no kids hollering for toys, no presents under the tree, no tree, etc. For those who celebrate Christmas here, it is about Christ's birth. And maybe the one time in the year you get to have chicken or goat for dinner.

Merry Christmas ... I miss you all.