Homesick

So as the festive season draws near I am finding myself a little more homesick than I expected. I am NOT missing the commercialism or the umpteen pre Christmas Dinner dinners! But I am missing the little traditions which until now I thought I didn’t care about. The carols in Church, the cold (WHY I hear you all scream back), the sickening Christmas Hits, 9 Lessons and Carols from Kings while mum gets ready for Christmas day. (notice I did say Mum not me), the smell of a Pine tree. Ok should stop or I may just cry or puke!

This week however there have been a few things to help me get over my small homesick feeling and prove that this really is a small world after all.

The first thing which hit me and helped was hearing “This is the BBC World Service, broadcasting from Bush House”. Wait… I used to work there and archive the Focus on Africa programmes I have been listening to and know the floor that is being broadcast from! Now I am appreciating what at one point I had started to loathe archiving.

The second was hearing a Southern Irish accent. This week a lady from Athlone was on the base and her accent was beautiful and so felt like another part of home was with me. Her husband works at the Irish Embassy. Lovely to meet her.

Third – mail arriving from my Mummy and Daddy.

Finally today I saw a familiar face. Ehi, he was one of the short termers here with me in February this year. When we left in Feb I had a feeling that our paths would cross again, little did I know it would be this soon. It’s so nice to see a face from the past here. Also today I was chattin with someone who knows Holywood, Co.Down well and also knew a bit about Bangor. I know its something small but it all adds up to helping a gal get over a few emotional bumps.

So enough about me, what’s been going on here!

Thursday: I decided I would finish the CD, this meant I didn’t get to see many kids. I worked for hours on it, only to discover late in the evening none of the work was saved! Ok…. Let me just remember, Love, Joy, Peace, PATIENCE… that’s the one! Hummmmm,

Fri: I changed my schedule slightly so I could go to the Bocaria for the Adult Church and walking through the people living and working there. With a flat bed truck, we headed off. It was decided a long time back that for various reasons we wouldn’t give out food parcels this year at Christmas. We arrived at the dump and obviously word had got out that this would be the day for food. The crowd was unbelievable. It was clear most were there for only one thing.

It also became quickly apparent that they were not going to be happy once they discovered there were no food parcels, so plans had to change quickly. We stayed in church for a long time and scrapped any plans to walk through the people. Normally when food parcels are given out at Christmas the police are there to control the mob and gangs. We could see that some of the gang members were there waiting for trouble, its quite hard to relax when you know that at any moment things could go south and there would be a riot before you knew it.

Thankfully with wisdom and guidance the guy leading it ended the service and we started to walk away. My heart did break for the desperation of these people and at the same time there is an expectation that they are owed something from us for Christmas. It’s not easy here sometimes.

The flip side of this is that today I feel like a real girlie! I went and had a manicure done. Africa is the only place where I can successfully grow my nails... when you see the amount of gunk under them at the end of the day it’s certainly stops ME biting them!

So I found myself in the city today with time to spare and thought I would get one done. So I have silver nails tonight and very soft hands from a great massage. Who knows how long it will last here, I could really do with a Pedicure, but couldn’t face have someone look at my feet today – they were boggin’.