Christmas, Malawi-Style

If there’s one thing that reminds me just how far away we really are it’s having to schedule phone calls with family ten hours behind. No open-jaw Boston-Anchorage-Albuquerque-Boston tickets this year. Still, with the wonders of modern technology at least we got to hear people’s voices.

With only vague plans for the weekend (potluck brunch Saturday at “11ish”) we started off Christmas Eve with a whimper. When “just let me send a few emails” turned into two hours of work on what was nominally a government holiday Ariel let her displeasure be known. Fortunately, we rallied, did a three supermarket blitz for critical ingredients, and made it home just in time to avoid getting soaked. This was the view out our back door:

White Christmas? Not this year. Undaunted (well, maybe a little daunted, but coping) we put on our sole Christmas music (Too Many Santas by The Bobs) and launched into some serious holiday cookery… just in time for the power to go out.

Fortunately it was only a brief outage and the Harms/Brooks culinary duo was soon back in action. We cooked full steam until seven, when we quickly dressed and headed over to the Ligatzi CCAP (our local church) where our friend Dave was supposed to be giving the Christmas Eve service.

Sadly, despite an hour hanging about on wooden pews people-watching and listening to Malawian Christian rock at high volumes, we did not get to see Dave preach. Apparently they spent two and a half hours stuck in Blantyre traffic. A hour and a half after the five hour program was to have begun (an hour after we arrived; give us some credit for knowing better than to show up right on time) a distinguished church elder arrived and took the microphone to address the 15-20 of us scattered around the thousand plus capacity space. “Ladies and gentlemen,” he said, “I will not hide the truth from you. If it appears we are not ready to begin our program, it is because we aren't. The people who should be here are still in Blantyre; we are plan B.” As much as we appreciated his honesty, once it was obvious Dave and Haley weren't going to make it back (and once we realized the youth chorus was performing only in Chichewa) we headed home.

After changing our best guess for appropriate Malawian church attire (suit & tie and full print dress, respectively) for pajamas and a final burst of kitchen activity we sat down to this:

Nothing says Christmas like linguini with fresh pesto from the khonde herb garden, garlic toast and caprese salad with perfectly ripe tomatoes, right? Also pictured: the famous five-star pretzels, flourless chocolate wonder cookies and secret-sauce homemade cracker jacks. Bring it, potluck brunch!

Christmas day, we decorated what may be the smallest Christmas tree on record:

After opening our Harms-family care package (thanks guys!) we whipped up a quick cornbread and split pea soup and headed over to Keith and Melody’s for brunch. Contributions were varied (cinnamon rolls, juice, takeout pizza) but uniformly delicious. Fueled by tasty food Ariel dominated the Wii dance-off and I managed to squeak out a narrow victory in hundred-pin Wii bowling. Good times. Home in time to putter in the garden a bit, talk to fam (hooray for Skype) and watch the silly Get him to the Greek before calling it an early night. Certainly not the same without family, but a good day nonetheless.