Christmas Eve 2009

It’s Christmas Eve, not yet 0900h and the temperature is 84C. The ducks are defrosting on the verandah. Ruairidh and Gregor have gone into Livingstone to collect animal feed for the farm and the cream that we’d ordered. Earlier in the week. They spent yesterday slaughtering a pig and smoking a ham for tomorrow.. Here it is, Christmas from scratch!

Earlier the ladies from the Sewing Support Group arrived with Dorothy and raked and cleared our yard of weeds. At this time of year it is difficult to keep on top of this. This was their thank you and their present to us. Ida, Catriona and Florence are now busy rolling out dough and baking traditional Danish cookies, while Mubita is happily watching and accompanying an old schmaltzy Muppet Christmas video.

We will gather as a family at around 4 in the afternoon, read Luke’s account of the Nativity, sing some carols. We remember friends and family in different parts of the world, those in trouble or suffering or those no longer with us. This is especially poignant because Mwale, Mubita’s half-sister, has been missing from her home for over a week now.

We will then sit down to prawn cocktail, (the ingredients were bought in Lusaka 800km away earlier in the month when we picked up Catriona and Gregor) roast duck, red cabbage, sugared potatoes followed by ris a l’amande.

For our friends and colleagues here in Zambia the main celebration takes place tomorrow. Most Zambian children will receive new clothes tomorrow. This is the new outfit, or Sunday-best for the coming year. These will be worn to the Christmas Service that begins at 0830h. Later in the day the family will eat fried chicken and boiled rice with a cabbage, onion and tomato relish. Drinks would be non-alcoholic maize beer (maheu), Mazoe (Orange Squash) or a Coke or Fanta. For pudding there may be a cake or some buns.

All this description of food underscores once again how privileged we are and should remind us that God gave us the resources of the earth to meet human needs, including food and as a gift from God it is intended for sharing. It has been given to the whole human race. But Proverbs 13:23 observes that people go hungry not because of a shortage of food but from a shortage of justice. This is what lies behind the reference to this in the Magnificat - God filling the hungry at the dawn of the Messiah’s birth. If this is seen just as a future hope, then it is not a true vision. It is meant to challenge us here and now into practical action, working for justice and the elimination of hunger – marks of genuine love and faith. Here in Mwandi, 40% of households are women-headed and over one third of our children are chronically under-nourished.

As David Blanchflower prays:

Holy Child of Bethlehem,
In you the eternal was pleased to dwell
Help us, we pray, to see the divine image
In people everywhere.