A little over a year ago I had just arrived in Kenya at the start of Advent to begin my assignment in Africa.  My first Christmas was a new experience and I was still more like a tourist than a resident.  This year I have settled in and the reality of being a real part of this country - with its own customs which are very different from those that I grew up with - is just beginning to settle in.  Many people have asked me what Christmas is like in this part of Africa.

Kenya is split in half by the Equator and Nairobi is just into the southern hemisphere. We have just passed through our LONGEST day of the year while most of you have  experienced just  the opposite.  It does change the perspective  a little especially in the area of  liturgy in that many of our “western liturgical symbols” just don't pay out here in Africa.  The sad fact is that so many of the urban cities in Africa have attempted to duplicate the commercialism of the west as if that were a sure sign of living in the modern way.  The malls and shopping centers have all bought into the “Western idea of Christmas” and have white Santa Clause's and garish decorations with songs like, “Jingle Bells” playing on their sound systems.  I couldn't help but think, “what do the words to that song mean to Africans, '…dashing through the snow in a one horse open sleigh, bells on bob-tail ring, laughing all the way?'”  I am living in a different culture.

Take, for example,  my experience of buying a Christmas tree.  Let me first tell you that, having spent that last 15 years of my ministry in Oregon where we could easily find on our own property any number of acceptable Christmas trees, the choices around here were VERY limited.  This is a picture of the tree that I got for the Church.

I wanted to buy a 'living tree' that we could then plant on the property but it needed to fit on the divider between the dining room and the chapel in 
our house.  Waiting to go to the various “street-side nurseries” on Christmas eve obviously put us in a “buyers market” and so the tree that I finally selected - which started out costing 3500 Ksh. (about $50 US Dollars) ended up costing  only 1500 Ksh.  And that price also included the six foot cut tree for the church picured above!  

But first I have to tell you how we managed to get such a bargain.  If I had been by myself I would have ended up paying twice as much.  Shopping with my African superior, Fr. Martin Ndegwa is always sure to bring the price down.  Whenever he  and I go out shopping I usually drive.  When we pull into any road side merchant area all the salesman swarm over to  ME shouting, “Papa, buy this.  Papa, I have the best deal.”  That's when I tell them, “Don't talk to me.  I just work for him (pointing to my African brother).  You'll have to deal with him.  Please don't talk too much to me or I might lose my job and it's all I have.”  This leaves them absolutely dumbfounded.  They don't quite know how to equate this arrangement of a white having a job as a driver for an African.  And Fr. Martin plays right into it with rebuttals like,  “Hey park the car over there off the road?  Can't you do anything right?”   It gives us a little edge on purchases and we have fun with it.

I couldn't find any ornaments for our house tree and none of us could figure out how to get the strings of lights to stop blinking!  I miscalculated the height but it still gave us a Christmas symbol visable from both our dining room and our chapel.

As you saw in the previous letter our church is still just a temporary structure and the compound is about a mile from our residence.  Therefore, we can't leave any significant decorations in the church since there is now way to secure the building.  This means that everything must be set up in the morning just prior to the celebration and means that many of the things that I was accustomed to do in previous assignments just can't be done in these circumstances.   So in desperation I have put much of my energy into decorating our house even though some of the African Dominicans tell me, “these aren't the things that we would do in our homes.”   It's then that I realize that a Christmas tree is a northern European custom and one that doesn't have much tradition here in Africa.  Yet there are many styles of "African Crib Scenes" and I used a little niche in the bookshelf in the Chapel for our "creche."

View of our house chapel, creche and tree

So, you see, I have to balance my life-long traditions with those of Africa and try to look for the thin thread that ties all of this together. The birth of Jesus has to be 'trans-cultural' and we have to look at what it means.  It's got to be more than a “Madison Avenue ad campaign for Santa Clause” or tinsel and glitter.  Now that I've celebrated my second Christmas in Africa I realize that I am still grappling with sorting all of that out.

“I'm dreaming of a white Christmas” and other northern-European Christmas carols and traditions make no sense over here in Africa and twinkly lights are almost unheard of.  One African told me, “When I was growing up we didn't have electricity so we didn't even think of putting up lights at Christmas.”

So this is my biggest challenge as I begin my second year in Africa to search out what are the really important aspects of life and celebration for the African people.  Hospitality seems to be one of the main links to how life is lived in this part of Africa.  Maybe it's because many people don't have much in the line of material things but they can always be hospitable. If I go to someone's home to drop something off or pick something up - or any other business - I have learned that I must first accept their hospitality.  Usually this would include tea and some little biscuits after I had been given a bowl of water and the opportunity to wash my hands.  At first I used to say, with pseudo-politeness, “Oh, no thank you.  Don't go to any trouble for me” which would be considered very rude.  Africans would never think to just knock at someone's door and jump right into the questions at hand.  That is considered too forward and you need to take time before you get around to the point.  This, of course, runs contrary to our Western sense of efficiency and one more thing that I have to get used to.

Africans also seem never to want to hurt your feelings and so they often tell you what they think you want to hear.  This especially frustrating when you ask for street directions and they tell you how easy it is to find such and such place which turns out not to be correct at all.  A telephone conversation which ends with, “I'll call you right back” usually ends right there.  Time efficiency is not one of the qualities that Africans yearn for and one that I must learn to live with!

To my credit, though, I try my best to relate to the locals.  I'm usually the only “mzungu” (foreigner) riding the public transportation around town and there was only one other white person on the bus to Mombossa.  I want to relate the best I can to the local people and not appear like so many of the people who work for the various embassies and UN who so often come across as aloof.  I still have to work on getting used to the typical African food.  We have a lot of beans, rice, maise and “ndizi” (bananas) which are served cooked much like squash and in a variety of ways.  Not my favorite food.  Our Tanzanian cook is not real experienced cooking meat.  I did manage to get her to stop trying to cook goat and I no longer buy “mutton” which always ended up unpalatable.  Living in a community where two of the brothers are vegetarians and the third could go either way leaves me as the 'odd man out.'  Who was the famous person who said, "Life is a learning experience?" and at 65 + years I'm still open to learning new things!

As always, I write back to folks who write to me.
Here are the ways you can contact me,
and read other stories of my adventures in Africa.