We moved to Kenya in Sept. of 2009. From the time the plane landed, life seemed overwhelming. Two short months after we arrived in Kenya we conceived our third child. During this time, we were also in language school and finding life extremely difficult to adjust to. With family a world away we desperately looked for the comforts that would normally come at Thanksgiving and Christmas.
The perfect Christmas would involve the perfect tree. We searched high and low for any area that sold a real Christmas tree. The best we could do was a $75 fake tree, sold to us at Nakumatt, a grocery store chain. The tree was basically a large pole with green, plastic pine-like needles wrapped around. The tree came in three parts. Out of the pole, wire branches sadly sprung out in an attempt to hold ornaments made for such a tree. Cheap, plastic ones. Now, being a great fan of Christmas I pulled out the full bin we shipped out just for our Christmas ornaments and decorations. As we placed our beautiful ornaments on the tree it became clear that the tree was tilting and the weighty ornaments were a high demand on our sad, expensive tree. With some tweeking, "handy Jonathan" had that tree upright and we were able to place ALL of our ornaments on the branches.
One of our favorite places to go during our time at language school was Westgate Mall. This sophisticated, up-to-date, classy, expensive mall was reminiscent of South Coast Plaza in Orange County. We were thrilled to see beautifully decorated trees, Christmas music playing, even the commercialization of Christmas was exciting. I can feel at home here. We browsed our way through the mall, window shopping with a cup of coffee in hand when we spotted him. You know, him. He wasn’t quite making his "Naughty-or-Nice" list, nor did we hear the echoes of a familiar, “Ho, ho, ho”, there were no children, presents or elves in sight. He was merely standing in front of a Kodak photo store soliciting photos with himself. He of course was black, which is expected but the suit was anything but expected. It was ridiculous. His red suit dripped off of his thin body and on the top of his head, a red, velvet cowboy hat, proudly stood. His cotton, poorly constructed beard was falling off his face as he spoke to passer-byes. After seeing this, I couldn’t resist. By this time our children were SO ready to go home. But we were not exiting the Westgate Mall without a family picture with Santa. We wanted proof. In my mind, we would send these as Christmas cards to the family as proof that we, most certainly, were in Kenya for the holidays. Santa was thrilled to take a picture with us. Seeing as the Kodak Studio looked professional, we thought we’d have a nice little back drop and a nicely arranged family portrait. Instead, they grabbed the cashier, handed him a camera that looked like it was for sale. They took several pictures out in front of the Kodak store and Vwala! Our family Christmas picture.
Our guard, Paul, was a seemingly pleasant man whom we tried desperately to use our Kiswahili on. His voice was so deep and difficult to make out, after a few tries, we just gave up trying to understand any of the grunts and mumbles that would come out. Christmas Eve was coming and Jonathan had a grand feast in mind. We were determined to make such a deal over Christmas and invite anyone who’d share a meal with us. We enthusiastically invited our guard Paul after we learned his wife and children were going up country to be with extended family. Alone on Christmas Eve? PERFECT! That night we invited Paul in to dine with us at our table. The children were the major relief of the meal after the general greeting of, “How are you this night?” “How are your children?” “How is the family?” Yep, that took a total of 2 min. to clarify but yet we had about 30 plus minutes with grunting, mumbling Paul. What did I do with that time? Desperately to find SOMETHING to talk about, I grabbed the lap top and showed him pictures of our family at Disneyland. Ridiculous, I know. “Disssss-neeeee-land, ” I mouthed. He wanted to know where this land was. After about ten minutes of trying to explain that Disneyland was indeed not a “land” or country, he was clearly confused and I was exhausted from trying. I continued to scroll through the pictures and said, “Well, this is us there.” We were glad to see Paul finally make his way out with dessert and a fresh cup of tea in hand. Goodnight Paul.
It needs to be said that one of the greatest gifts we were given from home was Christmas cards. We had so many. We took great joy in reading cards from home, over and over. We felt loved and remembered. We completely covered a whole wall of cards from family, friends and church family-including people we've never met before. We were and are proud to have so many supportive people who love us.
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