Christmas is Coming, then Went

(Here's what I started writing Dec. 9)

For years we've lived in Muslim countries where Christmas was a tiny fraction of what we'd experience in the U.S. Here in Zimbabwe, I found tall cut cedar trees for sale at several places just in our neighborhood. There are billboards advertising Christmas hams and caroling events. Every little shop has a gift basket conveniently on offer. Stores are staying open later for the shopping frenzy, and everyone is making plans to travel, to host and/or to party. Everyone will be on holiday. All schools will be out. OK, there's no snow, but at least the evening rains have gotten it chilly enough to light a fire at night.

When we all got excited about putting up the tree, I tried to remember when we'd had a tree before. It was 2006 after Eliza was born and Miles was just 2. ...which also explains why we have ZERO Christmas decorations. We have always either been traveling to be with family or fresh off the plane in a new country.

It's a been a year since we first arrived here. We had just moved into an empty, unfurnished house. Christmas Eve after the kids were asleep, I threw some old party decorations on a potted plant (ant-infested we realized the next morning) and placed the few toys we'd been able to bring with us and keep secret from the kids while living in the hotel for three weeks. We were lucky to have our friend Clementina still in Harare who had us over for a nice party.

(Continuation...January 5, 2011)

So like last year, we haven't travelled. We have had a quiet month at home. But the difference is striking. Last year, there was so much to do to settle in, but the holidays were an impediment to getting anything done since the real-estate agents were on holiday, etc. I couldn't drive yet and didn't know my way around. This year, we have our house and our tree, and it has just been a pleasure to RELAX!

We had Christmas dinner with friends, attended Christmas parties, had play-dates and day trips, hosted a baby shower, but mainly just relaxed at home. Finally, it was nice to attend a big New Year's party that we'd gone to last year. This time instead of barely knowing anyone, we knew quite a few people. It's starting to feel like we're more settled here.

Writing Christmas cards to teachers.

Spending time with friends: Bettina...

and Clemens: Janalou, Aljosha & Noah's parents

at their house where they have a new tree house...Here E hauls the message trolley up to the other kids.

Baby Shower:

Andrea & Chuck

Veena - transfering to South Sudan soon :(

Chuck...dad-to-be

Veena, Olga & Andrea (all Mercy Corps)

Andrea, mom-to-be

David plays tennis with his golf-buddy

...Jovan

Thanksgiving Day

For the first time in my life, I got up Thanksgiving morning and started preparing the meal and kept working on it until it was time to eat that afternoon. With Tari managing the kitchen mess and her helper, Vaida (aka Fadia), straightening up the mess the kids made of the rest of the house, the day was actually fun. At noon, Tari and I had a Courvoisier as a tribute to Mom.

I had thought Matt, Kim & Quinn would be flying in that afternoon, but their flight had been changed so they were actually arriving Wednesday night. Quinn wouldn't sleep in a room by himself, so the whole family piled on to our modest double bed in the guest room...not the best sleep. We did breakfast...I bought a quiche...Thursday morning, and then I took them to Doon Estates, a shopping area. Kim helped with the stuffing and young berry cobbler. Matt kept an eye on the turkey and made the gravy. David got back from work in time to start making early afternoon mimosas. Bettina and her three kids (+ another helpful nanny) arrived at 2, and we ate around 3:30. Some Mercy Corps guys, Amanuel and Mort (visiting) joined us about mid-meal.

Over all it was quite edible. Here's the menu review:

• Turkey: alternatively called "young" or "is that a chicken?" Shipped from Brazil, it was the only turkey available in town and half the size of an American one. Still, it tasted great. We used the Blackberry Farm cookbook for this and other recipes. 
• Gravy: a bit too heavy on the flour for my taste but one can't easily critique one's husband's boss. Still: edible.
• Stuffing: BBF cookbook. Not as good as Mom's mom's recipe. Peppers and giblets (don't like). However, we were able to use a number of ingredients from the garden: herbs, peppers, celery, etc. Found that mealie meal (staple of diet here) makes for a fine cornbread, so will be doing that again for sure. 
• Mashed Potatoes...BBF - fine
• Roasted broccoli medley...colorful but not anything to get excited about
• Roasted butternut squash with sage...should have doubled the recipe and we forgot to throw in the craisons AGAIN
• Pumpkin bread-pudding...too mushy but tasted ok with the pears soaked in Courvoisier and fresh whipped cream
• Young berry cobbler...too liquidy and lemony and the crust didn't turn out right but still tasty...and it had to be on the menu given the number of young berries growing outside the kitchen window
• Pecan Pie...hands down the winner in excellence!! This one was 100% Tari's. Recipe from BBF but had to substitute the sorghum syrup with good old corn syrup...although it was not nearly as thick and gooey as pecan pie usually is.
• Bettina also brought a salad and sauteed spinach which we needed as the above wasn't enough (see below)

After dinner, we moved under the big pecan tree for dessert...highlight of the evening was eating pecan pie under the tree that supplied the pecans. When it was dark enough to light the fire in the fire-pit table under the tree, the after work crowd started rolling in. (D forgot to mention to me that we would have another 5 guests coming.) This was the crew I'd gone with to Kariba the weekend before. They ate up most of the left-overs which was great since we were heading out of town the next day, and the night ended very pleasantly with fireside chat. 

The kids who had basically been allowed to roam around late into the night were found half asleep on their feet when I eventually figured they should be put to bed. Eliza was standing at their crafts table sleep-coloring. She's been into drawing and coloring a lot these days.

Mambo also rose to the occasion, performing a scaled-down, safari sun-downer, hunt-to-kill performance. It was a good fight, but the rat got away. However, he did succeed in dropping a nearly dead baby rat on Kim's foot at breakfast the morning before they left.

original meal crew: Matt, me, Bettina, David & Kim 

the kiddos: Aljosha, Miles, Janalou, Eliza & Quinn

Bettina & baby Noah

the host

the hostess

kid congregation point for all events

A funny thing about Zimbabweans

Zimbabweans, and I guess I'm talking mainly about the whites here, let their children walk around everywhere with their shoes off. Have I mentioned this before? I mean, I'm from the South, but rules (laws?) about wearing shoes in restaurants and stores and such are pretty well enforced...or rather, there seems to be a general consensus that it's a good thing to wear shoes.

But here you will see moms taking their kids grocery shopping in proper grocery stores with no shoes on (gross!). Or in the nicest neighborhood steakhouse, you will see families having Sunday lunch, and the kids will be walking around in the restaurant...in and out of parking lot, back yard playground and bathrooms!...with no shoes on! (Double gross!)

It never ceases to amaze me.

Another funny thing about Zimbabweans is that pretty much all the kids wear uniforms to school, and in the case of big high school boys, they are still wearing what amounts to a short-sleeve button down, with a tie!, tucked into a pair of elastic-waist cotton shorts made from the same material as the shirt, and I'm talking above the knees shorts, knee socks the color of the shirt and shorts pulled up to the knees (always!), and brown or black leather shoes. And kids put up with it! Can you imagine anything more humiliating for a strapping 16-year-old young man than to wear that? Girls have sensible, cute little dresses, but the boys look like total idiots.

And what's even a little sad is that a lot of grown men continue to dress that way. Having been in Muslim countries for 5 years before coming here, I still cannot get used to seeing a man in a pair of short-shorts...at work! Even shopping, I'll just see a grown man out of the corner of my eye, his big belly almost completely concealing what is probably his old school boy shorts. It's too much!!

But it's just the way things are here.

random man at work lunch... You should have seen the other guy.

From Global to Local: UN Day & Halloween

...does Halloween count as local?

Harare International School Celebrating UN Day 2010

This was our first UN Day at the school. A big part of it is a giant food festival with parents from all corners of the world setting up festive tables with favorite dishes from their country.

As a member of the PTO, I volunteered to take on an additional little project for the elementary school. There had been complaints...can't we do anything that is related to the UN or is somewhat more educational than experiencing food? Thus, the UN passport project was born.

It's funny how a little idea can turn into a month-long endeavor involving hundreds of people. We made fake  little  passports with each page being a flag of a country represented at the school.

We set up immigration stations with middle and high school volunteers who represented a few countries each and had flags waving. The kids had to find the flag that matched the one in their book and answer three questions: 1) on which continent is this country? 2) what language do they speak there? and 3) what is a typical dish you could eat there? Either they got the answers themselves or they got a little help from the immigration officer. Then they got a stamp in their passport and moved on to the next flag in another area of the world/campus. There were different passports with different flags, so there were nearly 25 different countries. After visiting 6 countries and getting 6 stamps, they came back to passport control for a prize which was a small gift from the embassies like flag pins or origami kits or whatever.

And every child got a t-shirt...it was pretty cool, if a tad bit chaotic. More than 150 kids participated, and they really seemed to enjoy it which was frankly luck...who knows what kids older than mine like these days?!

In addition to the food and passport game, there was a flag ceremony in the auditorium where a flag from every country represented at the school was carried in by a student from that country who then went up to the mic and said "hello" in their native tongue. Not sure why, but it is strangely moving, especially for the adults who were fighting back tears. Me, too. Funny.

Halloween was celebrated on that same day. We went straight from school to a friend's house for a quick beer and to change into costumes before heading to the Marine's House. Luckily, we were invited by our "buddy family" (Sheryl & Vaughn) to the marine's halloween party which they throw for kids of embassy staff. Yes, the marines. They provide security for some of the embassy staff.

(One of Miles and Eliza's friends from school is the daughter of the head marine. And yes, I do find him a wee bit intimidating. One of his marines bar-tending at the party said he'd almost rather be in Afghanistan where you are ready for danger. "Here, people get complacent and let their guard down." "Right, can I have another beer?" Sheesh.) 

The marine house brought back memories of fraternity houses, except this one had zebra skins and POW banners in addition to the foosball table where Miles spent most of his time until the contortionist/magician showed up. Talk about cringe-worthy. Nothing like a bunch of small children watching a man pretend to make another kid (his assistant) swallow a large object that then magically popped out his rear. (Don't try this at home!)

My Husband These Days

,

For those of you who need another glimpse of him in his hat.

Little by Little

We moved into an unfurnished house in May. I had about 3 weeks before we left for the States in June to figure out how to fill the gaps. Nights looking at Home & Garden by the fire. Ah. Some furniture of ours was shipped here: couch, our bed, an end table, a couple of kid chairs and dressers. I wanted to make this house seem like ours and not just a temporary residence, but most things we will probably not be able to bring with us, so no point in investing in something terribly nice or unsalable. So here's some of what it looks like thus far (a work in progress).

The "lounge"...our living room / den...is the largest room and is both the formal and informal family gathering place. 

We need something bigger over the fireplace and more on the walls. The teak coffee table and wicker seats are new. We have a matching love-seat in the office. The bookshelf is one of a few things we had made by a local carpenter...by far the cheapest option.

Replacing the curtains was my least favorite project - but here they are.
Better than rose polyester with silky mauve tasseled trim. 

Kid's corner.

Love seat in the office.

One of our new local paintings,

Veranda off lounge...where we eat meals, do homework, socialize. Life in Zimbabwe is spent on the veranda.
All this furniture is locally made: simple and cheap.

We bought this old wicker set, had it patched up and stained, then reupholstered the cushions.

We were going to rip the bar out and make a den, but then we had a big party and decided it was useful.

We moved the bed under the window which means no view of the garden but morning reading light.

And space in the bedroom for the art deco vanity with cane chair, essential equipment for playing dress up.

Domesticity

I feel like I'm just playing house half the time.


Me in my robe, house-shoes and glasses helping the kids in the car, checking that backpacks are remembered and everyone has clean faces. Kisses all around. To Miles: remember to be considerate to others. To Eliza: be a good listener and do what your teacher says the first time. To David: be productive; don't play computer games.

I carry a large flowery cotton tote that can serve as a shopping bag. I purchase a vase for cut flowers from the garden. I make bar cookies for guests of the soccer tournament at the school as part of my PTO responsibilities. I wear an apron on the weekends. And yoga pants. 

I organize play-dates in the afternoon, coffees with other stay-at-home-moms late morning (after the early morning workout), and make arrangements for dinners and parties. I ensure the children make birthday cards for their friends. I pick them up at school and drive them to swimming lessons.

I make dentist appointments for the whole family. (Well, in theory...I'm working on it.)

Most of the time, I'm on autopilot. I make my lists. I drive around. I draw lines through the items on the list. I check the schedule. Have I forgotten something? (the groceries in the trunk again? the meeting with the school counselor? pick up time?)

But sometimes - like when I'm wearing the apron and stirring muffin mix, and my husband comes in and gives me a kiss on the cheek, and I say, how was golf? - I think WTF. This is hilarious. Somebody get the camera.