MAF Christmas Party

The run up to Christmas was very busy. On Christmas Eve we had a MAF Christmas Party which was for the international and national staff and their families. It’s the one occasion in the year where we are all together. The party was held down at Kajjansi Airstrip. It’s nice to hold the party down there as it reminds us for the reasons that we are in Uganda. The pilots probably feel that they see enough of the airstrip, but anyway! We had a plentiful array of local style food (the national staff tend to not like Western food). I don’t eat Ugandan food all that often, and so love the opportunity to eat matoke (steamed green bananas), posho (maize porridge), chicken stew, greens (a kind of spinach), Irish (potatoes), sweet potatoes and g-nut sauce (a pinky coloured sauce made from peanuts with the shells on – they are called ground nuts here in Uganda). This is all topped off with ‘soda’ – a bottle of any one of the following ubiquitous drinks – Sprite, Coca-cola, Fanta or Tangawezi (this is Swahili for ginger ale).

Several games were held – a Christmas Quiz and a tug-of-war. It was fun to see our night guards and flight followers enjoying themselves like this.

It's Christmas Time!

It seems that many folks reckon that Christmas in Africa is a very sleepy, relaxed affair. That's not our experience however! It's true, that there isn't nearly as much commercialism as the western world - but we seem to be as busy here at this time of the year as anywhere else in the world! Laurie flew all last week. One day he flew from the very far west of Uganda (Kisoro) right up to the far north east (Kaabong). He thinks it's the first time he has really flown right across the country. Laurie is even flying Christmas Eve. He is fetching on of the Doctors from World Harvest Mission that have been working on the Ebola outbreak. This chap - Scott, is having a well earned break in Kampala with his family for Christmas. (MAF flew his wife out a few days ago, and his children a week or so ago). They are all now staying at the MAF guesthouse which is packed to the rafters!

Laurie's birthday on the 20th went well. The girls decorated (I say that word carefully) his cake. I think their objective was to get as many decorations per square cm as possible!
We are developing some great family Christmas traditions. One is a wooden advent calendar that we were given by Terri and Darrell Ingram some years ago. The kids love hanging the stars on each day. (They have also had their fill of chocolate from a choccie advent calendar - thanks Aunty Jane)!
This morning, we went to a different church - Kampala Pentecostal church to see their Christmas Cantata. It was phenomenal! It told the real story of Christmas in a really creative way. I'm adding a video of it for you to see a little bit.