Do They Know It's Christmas?

10.Jan.2011

I’ve had that Christmas song since I went to New Zealand the first time… The Christmas song Do they know it’s Christmas time at all? And it was always one of my top since I heard it, but I never knew or listened close enough that it says Africa and that’s what it is actually talking about. Somebody pointed it out to me this past Christmas.... while here in AFRICA! And yes, they do know it’s Christmas. Okay, enough with the irrelevant story; I’ll now talk about my Christmas time on the Indian Ocean…for the second time. J

Being on a beach for Christmas definitely has it’s pluses. Of course, there is no snow to go sledding on or make snowmen or snow angels, but sand angels work, too. J Vilanculos, a beach city here, is very pretty. Also very touristy, so I really didn’t have to use my Portuguese much… My friend who is placed in Vilanculos for her Peace Corps time, lives right on the beach. I could literally throw a stone into the water from where her front yard is. And here’s a plus for me, too, Vilanculos is the closest place for me to go to a bank and get a better variety of vegetables and fruits…guess I do have to come here more often. SCORE!

Christmas was an amazing time with a really good group of people. It was 6 of us Moz15ers plus 2 Moz14ers. We relaxed on the beach, walked on the sand bar that goes out really far when the tide is down, we made cookies for Santa, and watched A Christmas Story (first time I actually saw it all the way through surprisingly enough). On Christmas morning we woke up at 4:30 to watch the sun rise over the ocean.

We did a White Elephant (or Yankee Christmas as some call it) where we did 2 rounds of it. Lucky me, I got a bungee cord! And a wooden alligator key chain. I actually have used that one bungee cord a couple times now. J And if you look at my Christmas pictures, it’s true, I did wear my Santa hat ALL day! J

Because New Year’s kind of goes with Christmas, I’ll mention it here, too. It’s hard to believe 2010 is over. It seems like yesterday I was getting ready to go work in Montana. So many good memories of 2010… I would list them out, but I think you can just go back and read my whole blog again if you want to bore yourself with all the stories. J

How did we say goodbye to the old year? We made a kickass breakfast to start with. French toast and yogurt with fruit and muesli. MMMM. Than Alice and I made a couple of hula hoops, with the intention of her teaching me some tricks and then playing Hula Hoop wars that night… but I think in order to play Hula Hoop Wars you have to actually be able to keep the hula hoop going for longer than 20 or 30 seconds… and that’s where I failed! Hula hoop is a good workout and I think with time and practice, I could maybe get it down. J

We went to a backpackers place to get on the dance floor and that’s where I was the rest of 2010. That’s definitely the best way to end one year and start another! After the ball dropped in Mozambique (okay, it was a pretend ‘ball’, next year I’ll drop a real one for New Year’s), we ended up going down to the beach for some time, of course after we had them play Toto Africa. I started chatting with these teenage girls. It’s always good to try to work on my Portuguese. . . and learn some dancing at the same time. I showed them the 2 Mozambican dances I have learned already, and I was trying to get them to teach me more. We never got around to that. Instead, I taught them a butchered up line dance. You know, it’s real hard to give commands to a dance while trying to remember the whole dance…and then to be doing it in Portuguese!

And that, my friends, was my celebration of the holidays. Nothing too big, but fun none-the-less!