Finding Christmas

Sometimes it seems that I am more motivated to write when I am feeling depressed or homesick, so if there is a melancholy slant to my blog, I apologize.  I strongly suspect that my most recent decline in mental outlook is fueled by monthly hormonal variations (read:PMS) and my recent visit to South Africa for a conference on tuberculosis.  South Africa (at least the limited area I visited) reminded me very much of the States.  There were well-marked highways and operational shopping centers.  There was gasoline to be purchased in the gas stations, and the queue didn’t stretch for blocks.  Within 5 minutes of arriving in the airport in Johannesburg I had gorged myself on treats not available in Malawi: sweets and coffee, a Subway sandwich and diet coke fountain soda.  I was nauseous by the time we arrived in Capetown. There I had the dubious honor of going to the largest mall in the Southern hemisphere, replete with a McDonalds and a Toy R’ Us.  I only had about 4 hours to spend in the mall, and spent a portion of the time stunned by the similarity it bore to home. The rest was spent in a near-frenzy of shopping and (more)  eating (food court sushi, frozen yogurt, candy, and more fountain soda). There was Christmas music playing overhead, and the stores were filled with decorations and shoppers buying presents for family.  Maybe it was the Mariah Carey music that put me over the edge, but it suddenly occurred to me how little it feels like Christmas in Malawi.  It isn’t just the oppressive heat.  Maybe it is the fact that, in the face of such ubiquitous poverty, there is no consumer culture. There are certainly a few poor-quality plastic toys from China that have suddenly appeared on all of the shelves of the supermarkets, and the few shops that we patronize have hung similarly low-quality decorations, but the feeling of Christmas seems to be missing.

When I arrived back in Malawi it felt like I had culture shock all over again.  I felt disgruntled.  Our house is in a constant state of utter chaos.  It is about 1500-1800 square feet, and is occupied at all times by a minimum of 7 to 10 people, including the rotating cadre of nannies who help us survive.  There are babies crying, children exchanging gunfire in the living room, children climbing the sofas and raiding the cabinets, and women ironing or washing dishes or sweeping.  It is like a Calgon commercial, but without the big tub full of bubbles at the end (because we frequently have no water).  I would never, even for 1 second, say that I regret bringing the twins home, but the influx of noise and people and work that they have brought with them has been overwhelming and exhausting.  This new chaos, on top of the daily grind of life in the heat and dust, and contrasted with the cozy pictures of life in the States during the holidays that friends and family have been posting on Facebook, has left me with acute on chronic homesickness. 

            I returned to Lilongwe determined to bring the Christmas spirit into the Fitzgerald home.  Saturday we loaded all five kids into the car and ventured out to buy Christmas decorations and suffer together through the special hell that is Shopping Day in Lilongwe.  It was actually the first time we had taken all five of them anywhere except “Two-for-Tuesdays” at Pizza Inn each week.  It went well, despite the not-unexpected need to go to 5 different grocery stores in order to purchase the simple items necessary to sustain our massive household for a few days.  The tree we bought for $70 US at the only “department store” was plastic, but the picture on the box was decent, and I grew excited.  Mostly we had a large selection of brightly colored cheap plastic Chinese Christmas decorations to choose from, but we found garland and tinsel, and even a few small ornaments.

            I worked most of the day on dinner, making seitan from scratch for a hearty stew.  As I was finishing cooking, I asked Dave to start to put the tree together, as I assumed it would take some time to assemble.  Literally 30 seconds later he said, “There. Done”.   I laughed, but he was serious.  The tree is a four-foot high replica of the Charlie Brown Christmas tree, and not just because Dave had forgotten to unwrap and open all of the branches.  It didn’t help when we did.  Last year we filled our living room with a 10 foot high North Carolina fir tree, decorated with the scores of ornaments I have acquired throughout my lifetime.  Looking at this tree, I almost cried.

            That night we put the a/c on really high, to make it feel cold, put some barely-audible Christmas tunes on the iPad, drank some hot chocolate, ate warm homemade snickerdoodles, and decorated the tree.  The children honestly didn’t seem to notice how pathetic it was.  They carefully hung makeshift ornaments from paper gift tags and enthusiastically hurled tinsel at the branches, all the while exclaiming about how beautiful our Christmas tree was.  We bought some spray-on snow and wrote “Merry Christmas” on our glass door, and covered it with pictures of snowmen and presents. Then we sang some of the more boisterous Christmas carols at the tops of our voices.  After the shiny silver garlands and smiling plastic (albeit slightly scary) Santa head were hung on the walls, it actually looked festive.

            Of course our kitten Nahla, considering the tree a worthy adversary given its size, lodged relentless assaults on it throughout the night and into the next morning, scoring significant damages.  We eventually lifted the (unimaginably) more pathetic remains of our Malawian Christmas tree onto a desk and out of reach, and that is where it stands today.  The giant Santa-head on our front door fell off almost immediately (which was OK), but at least some of the garland remains on the walls, despite the countless gun battles that take place in our living room each day.  All in all, the living room reflects my current mood: a little disheveled, relentlessly besieged by children, but determined to be festive.