I'm dreaming of a hot Christmas!

Last weekend was unofficial Christmas weekend at the ‘teacher flats’. As most people will be away for actual Christmas we decided to have ours a month early. When it is 28 degrees outside and the shops are not blaring out Christmas music it is quite difficult to get in a Christmasy mood but by the end of the weekend I think we all felt like we were getting there.

The week before we all watched Christmas films as if we were watching rubbish TV the week before Christmas. Unfortunately we couldn’t recreate the Strictly Come Dancing so it didn’t feel like the real lead up to Christmas.

On the Saturday night we had a ‘Christmas Eve’ party on the roof of the flats with Mosquitoes doing the nipping not Jack Frost! Mulled wine was replaced by fresh fruit cocktails but the cheesy Christmas tunes and even a Santa hat made it festive.

Sunday was Christmas day which was a real flats family affair. There were 15 of us for Christmas dinner. Each flat had there own part of the meal to cook. Flat 3 (my flat!) cooked the roast potatoes and stuffing, not quite like Mum’s! Considering we are in Tanzania most of the important parts were there, just the parsnips that were missing.

Even Santa knew we were celebrating a month earlier. He had delivered presents for everyone (Secret Santa buying is even more difficult when the choice is very limited).  We had very own Queen’s speech and of course the Christmas afternoon games.

I had made a Christmas cake that we were all too full for on the day (like in the Durrant house!) even though we had room for chocolate brownies and sweets. Christmas left overs have been great this week and no turkey sandwiches!

Unfortunately ‘fake Boxing day’ is not a no school day!

We are all now on major count down to real Christmas! We are doing our Christmas play at school this week so it really is starting to feel like Christmas. The tea towels and tinsel are out!

Only 7 more days of school until my month holiday and just over 3 weeks until Mum and Dad come out to visit. Yipee!

Church in Mwanza

I am still enjoying life in Mwanza but I have to have the timing right to update you on the internet to fit around bad internet connections and no electricity.  It sounds like they happen a lot but actually they just happen in the evening when I am not at school….. So inconvenient!

I have just got back from church so I thought I would give you a little insight into what it is like.

Although it is easier to get up early here as the sunshine streaming through the curtains wakes you, getting up for church that starts at 8am is still a bit of a shock on Sunday mornings. The other option is to go to the 10am Kiswahili service but even though I have started learning Swahili I think understanding 1 in about 100 words would be hard work.

Kirumba Valley Christian Centre Church is about a 10 minute walk from my flat on the other side of the market where we do our shopping. It is always an interesting walk we lots of weird and wonderful sights and smells to pass on the way.

The Church services are held in a big warehouse type building which is normally full of about 300 people by the end of the service (Half the congregation work on African time!). The worship is lead by a 20 strong African choir singing out beautiful harmonies. The songs are mostly British worship songs but in their own style.  Oh Lord my God, How Great is our God and Majesty in full on African Gospel style makes pretty powerful worship. One of our favourite songs is ‘Awesome’. Here is a link to a church in America singing it just to give you an idea of the style. The swaying, passion and sound is the same but imagine a choir a quarter of the size and a few mosquitos buzzing around to get the true experience of church in Mwanza.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ej5Wr43JYHE

The Pastor is very passionate but luckily doesn’t talk for the typical hours and hours like in most of the churches here. You have to be very ‘unbritish’ when every 5 minutes he asks you to repeat a question to your neighbour or shouts Hello!  For you to say back to check you are still listening! As I am one of about 8 white people at the church we kind of stand out so we are made to feel very welcome with lots of hand shaking and cups of delicious Tanzanian sweet tea! Here is a link to a Blog that someone from the Church has set up so you can have a look at what it looks like and what they do. The photographs must be fairly old as they now have flashing fairy lights behind the stage and a proper screen for the words!

http://kirumbavalleychristiancentre.blogspot.com/

As I have started having Swahili lessons I better practice by saying…….

Kwaheri! Niwasiliane!