Merry Boxing Day

K writes:  “Reading [the blog] out of time – you write about November in April, etc. – just gives an exaggerated feeling of how far away you are.”  I rather like that idea.  Yeah.  That’s why I do it.  Anyway, this is from December 2015:

Much of Namibia shuts down for the ‘festive season,’ which is essentially December.  That’s prime planting season, as the rains start about then – in November in lucky years, January or February in less good times.  Lately it’s been as late as March.  ‘Rains’ doesn’t mean a 20-minute sprinkling, which can happen anytime (but only very rarely does), but a long, thorough, drenching rain that goes on for hours, and recurs every day for weeks or months.  When they do start, you want to be ready, so people living in towns and cities head for farms and villages, especially in the riverine northern parts of the country, where the best growing and most people are.

The Namib desert is not renowned for its agriculture.

So my foundation closed for five weeks: 4 December until 11 January.  Almost everything else was closed at least 11 December until 4 January.  Many of my friends headed to farms; Peace Corps volunteers around the country headed for Victoria Falls, Etosha, Swakopmund, Capetown.  I stayed snug at home.  After the first week, a circuit blew at the office, so I couldn’t even go in and work on my business training slides.  And oh, my goodness, did it get HOT.  The Afrikaans language has no word for ‘hot,’ which is deeply weird.  You can only say ‘warm’ (pronounced ‘vahrm’) and ‘baie warm’ – ‘very warm.’  What they need is a word for hot, and another word for a desert summer day 20 degrees from the equator, at sea level; something that would approximate ‘blisteringly, meltingly, expletive-deletingly, unnecessarily, gruesomely, hellishly hot.’  Seriously.

I turned my desk into the sideboard.

However.  Christmas.  My friend Fabiola had not completely abandoned our small town, so I invited her, George and Cherial over for Christmas dinner.  But then they wound up spending Christmas with family after all, so they would come instead on Boxing Day, the 26^th.  Except that Cherial wound up staying at her grandmother’s farm after all, so my Christmas 2015 was one day of sweating quietly on the couch, and one day of cooking and festive-izing with Fabiola and George.  We had crackers – both the pop-gun kind with crowns, and the ones that go under cheese.  Fabiola and George willingly tried cheese and crackers, but remain skeptical of the concept.  We listened to Christmas music, thanks to Noisetrade, and looked at photos of the USA.  “Is there always water in the river?” George asked of a picture of the Mighty Mo.  “Yes,” I said.  “That much?!” he demanded.  “Sometimes more,” I clarified.  He’d like to see for himself.

Preparing to roast carrots, onions and green squash

Yorkshire pud to be.

Mushroom sauce.

Filet of BEEF!  Leaving me free to get at most of the pud, with sauce.

Mince pie.  The fancy grocer provided the prepared filling; very sticky and very, very rich.

It's rather a heavy meal for such a hot day, really.

On the 27^th I got an SMS from the post office saying there was a Nampost Courier delivery for me, and I figured it would be something from Peace Corps HQ in Windhoek.  Like, magazines or something.  But when I went and collected, it was a PRESENT!  For CHRISTMAS!  Sister3 elaborately arranged for a gift-basket delivery via Omba in Windhoek.  (I am blessed with kind and generous friends and relatives, but everyone who had thoughtfully put parcels in the US post back in November got their thank-you e-mails when I received the lovely Christmas deliveries ’round about Valentine’s or St. Patrick’s Day.  Gosh, mail is fun.)

Prezzies!

Merry Christmas to All!