Merry Christmas

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It is the Friday before Christmas and I am on a bus to Lusaka. I’m going to spend Christmas with Danielle Dang. No I don’t know who she is. She is a Laura’s co-worker. Laura is a girl I met in Livingstone. They are both Americans and work for the Zambia Emory HIV Research Project. Well sort of, Laura has finished her contract and is heading home. So no, she isn’t in Lusaka either. It is just Danielle and myself for Christmas. Yes, I think that is strange.

It just happened that Laura and I were talking about the holidays. I said I was going to be in Lusaka because I had a canoe safari starting on the 26th and I had to be as far as Lusaka. Laura suggested that if I wanted a place to stay and people to hang out with…. So I called Danielle. All I know about her is that she just got go Lusaka a couple of weeks before. I guess she got to Zambia the same time I did.

Fast Forward a few days:
Danielle hasn’t kicked me out, so that is good. We did some partying in downtown Lusaka last night… good times. We also spent yesterday watching a soccer game. I just can’t call it football. The team was a local team sponsored by Danielle’s project, though neither of us played. The most intriguing thing about the game was the penalty kicks. Anytime there was a kick the fans would all storm the field and line up around the kicker to watch the kick. After the kick, it was back to the sidelines. The sun and heat was brutal today. Actually the heat isn’t so bad. But the sun just seems to bake a person.

No stockings and no chimneys for Christmas. It was cool for Christmas eve, I think it was about 25C for an overnight temperature. We went to the holiday in to help a group of people that were feeding street children. We got to watch Madagascar with the kids. What a good time. Volunteer wise we didn’t do much just keep the kids in line and help clean up. It was good to see the smiles and felt good to be part of helping a good group of people spreading Christmas cheer.

There were six of us for Christmas dinner. Some of Danielle’s work mates came back from Kafue. We had pot-roast, stuffed peppers, pork loin, potatoes, deviled eggs, some apple casserole and some stuffing casseroles as well. Overall we had more food, wine, and gin than we could eat and drink. After dinner, we played Password until the wee hours. It was a good Christmas. Better than I expected for being alone in Africa.

6:30AM will be very early tomorrow.


Pictures

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