Happy Holidays, everyone

So I've been hearing stories from my friends and family back home about the huge amount of snow you've been getting. I guess it's really starting to look like Christmas over there! Here it's looking a lot like... well, like a very hot summer with Christmas lights. There haven't been too many of the traditions that normally signal "Christmas" to me. No house parties, none of the holiday food I'm used to, few Christmas movies or music, and obviously no snow. Here it seems like the holidays aren't so much a family affair as an excuse to go out and party (at least, for people my age it's okay to hang out with your friends and go off on vacation -- older people are expected to visit their families back in "shags", the countryside). Which is also fun... just not really what I'm used to.

The gift-giving tradition hasn't caught on much either. It's a bit odd because on the radio and in the newspaper, we're getting all the gift guides and such as we would back home. But absolutely nobody that I know, even the middle-class people, are buying presents. So I wonder who all these ads and articles are targeting. It must be exclusively for the upper class/Westernized families. There have been quite a few Santa Clauses around town (black Santa, woo!), but no kids lining up to sit on his lap, not even at the mall. I guess if you don't get presents, you wouldn't really believe in Santa. And there's not too much incentive to sit in a strange man's lap if you don't think you're going to get a shiny new toy out of it. There are some lights and other decorations around town, but without the snow they just look odd. The holly and ivy, reindeer and snow-covered pine trees painted in store windows look particularly out of place alongside the hawkers, bustle, dust and heat of downtown Nairobi.

I hear there is a lot of good food around Christmas, though not of the turkey and stuffing variety. I've told my co-workers, with much nostalgia over Christmas dinners past, about the food we traditionally eat at this time. They thought that eggnog sounded disgusting (fair enough, lots of Westerners do too), and cranberry sauce strange. Here the more common foods are those that you find at other celebratory occasions, like weddings -- pilau, chicken, roast meat (roast beast!), chapati, etc.

Today was my last day of work at IIN, which was a bit bittersweet -- it will be nice not to have to come into the office anymore, but I'll be sad to go and leave my coworkers. It's been fun working in an office composed almost exclusively of young women. And of course I've had a lot of amazing experiences while working here. But I'll still be doing some work for my boss here and there, so I won't be completely out of touch. It will be really nice to take a break for awhile, this year has been a lot of hard work!

My Christmas plans have been shaping up well. Tomorrow I leave to the coast with three companions -- Georgie, Jennie (a Canadian friend who was working in Elangata Wuas for the past few months), and Konzo (another Kenyan friend from Elangata Wuas). We'll spend Christmas in Mombasa, Kenya's major coastal city. So many Nairobians are heading out there for Christmas to go to the beach, so I'm sure it's going to be crazy, and I hope a lot of fun. On Boxing Day, we're going to Lamu, a small island off the coast which is much like Zanzibar in its preservation of Swahili culture. Lamu is even smaller, though -- the only vehicles on the island are the ambulance and the police car, and donkeys are the main means of transportation. They have fantastic fruit juices and seafood, and it's a great place to just chill, go sailing on a dhow, go swimming and relax. I'm looking forward to that. For New Year's, I'll either be heading back to Mombasa or going to Diani Beach on the south coast.

I hope that all of you have safe and happy holidays. I'll certainly be missing family and home, but I'll make the best of being here. So while you're sitting around the tree or slogging through the snow, just think of me, dancing on the beach. Merry Christmas!