The Holidays

The holidays have come and gone in Tanzania, and they were for sure a little different than all previous Christmas and New Years festivities. One of my friends and neighbors asked if I would stay for Christmas because all of his family was coming from different parts around Tanz to spend the Holidays in Chome. So even though I had been planning on finding some other Peace Corps folks to join forces with I decided I would go with a village Christmas. On the 23rd, I rode back up on the deteriorating lorry with a mama that cooks a delicious rice and bean dish near by my house so I have gotten to know her pretty well over the last few weeks…she told me that tomorrow there was going to be a ubarikio or what I am pretty sure means a Confirmation. This was exciting since I had no real plans for the holidays, so having something to do for sure the day of Christmas eve was positive. I arrived a little late to the confirmation and the small church was already too packed to be able to sit inside. There were a group of super old men sitting outside with their chairs just out of the sun sitting face to face with the concrete walls of the church. Not gonna lie, it looked really strange. It looked as though they were currently watching the whole ceremony with xray vision, because none of them were really talking to one another, just staring at the wall ahead of them haha. But one of them was a man I had eaten peanuts with the other day so I greeted him, pulled up a chair and joined the wazee congregation staring blankly into the wall.  We sat there for almost an hour not saying really anything to one another…I could barely hear the music so I am sure they would not hear all that much either. So my first ubarikio was a little odd, but I enjoyed my sitting time with the village elders haha. After those confirmed left, every family with a confimed child (which was a lot, especially because everyone in the entire village seems to be somehow related, so there were many many ubarikio parties I was asked to go to). I decided to go to one with a friend of mine so I could ask him questions in English to make sure I didn’t do anything really incorrectly. The ceremonies I had seen in passing and then the one I attended were pretty big actually. There was music playing, some people had PA systems, many gifts were given, lots of food and drink were served, all around quite a gathering to celebrate the kids being confirmed.

Christmas day was a little strange, because it turns out that my friend’s family was not having the holiday gathering on Christmas, but in fact it would be the day after. So my Christmas ended up consisting of doing a little hand washing of my clothes, making some delicious rice and beans, and watching Elf on my computer. Quaint and extremely peaceful haha. The next day I went to my buddy’s house and did celebrate Christmas with his father and many borthers and sisters.

I took off to travel a little and visit some friends in the surrounding Kilimanjaro area leading up to new years. Spent a few days with a volunteer in her village called Slahamo, near the city of Karatu. A fantastically beautiful site on the plateau that rises off the greta rift valley, closing in on the boarder of one of Tanzania’s most well know national parks, Ngorogoro crater. I spent a few days there, and met up with more volunteers in I think the second biggest city in Tanz called Arusha, before heading back to Moshi for New Years Even and some birthday festivities. About 20 of us volunteers were all together at this point, and we elected to go to a little bit of a nicer bar for the evening. All in all it was quite an experience again…there were many fire works set off, but as opposed to the usual firework precautions (like setting them off at a reasonable distance from a crowd), the fire works were set off in the middle of the roofless bar area. Most went up but from time to time flaming balls of color would go shooting through the crowd. Wildly dangerous. Along with that, they had set up what appeared to me to be a teepee. This teepee turned out to be the makings for the most massive bonfire I’ve ever seen in my life. And I have seen some big fires working at a summer camp for so many years. But this fire stood about 20 feet high. So after igniting the kerosene soaked trees leaned against each other in the center of the bar area, the flames leapt up a good 30 feet. Again awesome, yet, wildly dangerous. To top off the pyrotechnics, when the clock struck midnight, at least a dozen random people pulled handguns out of there pants and shot loaded guns into the air. Karibu Tanzania haha quite a way to bring in the New Years.