White Christmas

I came back into Sudan just before American Thanksgiving (not to be confused with Canadian Thanksgiving… although I don’t think even Canadians know when their holiday is). I was able to spend a couple weeks on a cruise around the Mediterranean Sea with my parents and sister. My parents and sister got some good pictures, but I relied on my parents on sister taking photos to capture the experience, so I don’t have any digital pics to post. My favorite ones came from the Coliseum, so if you see my folks, you’ll have to get them to show you.

But, since returning to Sudan, it hasn’t rained once. And apparently the dry heat started a week before I came. So, Christmas was actually a white Christmas for me. The precipitation that fell from the sky was not in liquid form, however, but a constant drizzle of white ash. It’s that time of year. The roads get absurdly dusty and the dust finds whatever crack and crevice it can to get into your clothes, bed, hair, moustache, food and wherever else it manages to make it. The food being all sandy and gritty might be the worst part of it. But, as everything dries and dies, all the plants and grasses that cover the acres and acres of barren landscape get burned off. There are often nights that light up the distance with random fires burning across the horizon, and there is ash everywhere. It floats up with the draft that the infernos cause, and it is deposited all over the country sometimes miles and miles away from the fires. In a way, it really does feel like snow flurries. If only it wasn’t 100 degrees out, I might even be able to convince myself of that.

I did have a good Christmas as I was able to celebrate with a Kenyan, Canadian, and another American who were also in Sudan as we came together at one of our central bases for the day itself. I even saw a Christmas tree with lights, and ornaments. There’s a new cell phone company opening up in the country that used them as marketing tools to advertise the new line. I picked up a few of the ornaments to put up on my tree in years to come. I’ve only got to write on it Christmas in Sudan, 2008 just like the rocking horse ornaments that my grandparents used to get me growing up.

Hope everyone else had a Merry Christmas as well and I hear most of northern North America was covered in the white stuff. Throw a snowball at someone for your friend here in Sudan. And eat a stale, left-over candy-cane for me too. That’s one thing I realized later after the fact that I missed this year.