Heri ya Krismasi!

Merry Christmas! (A greeting that's good, remember, until 6 January.)

Though I have been here for 1.5 years, this is my first Christmas here in TZ. Last year I returned in mid-December for my mother's funeral and remained through Christmas.

So what can I report? Well that it is less frenetic, certainly. There is some exchange of cards, but gift-giving the way it has been constructed activity in the US is nowhere to be found.

Our festivities began with Mass in the Night (the technical term that some interpret as Midnight Mass). Ours began at 9 p.m. It was a big production. One of our German volunteers, Jana, has a friend (Dorian) visiting here. I enjoyed watching his facial expression at different points. Two in particular: (1) When there was a procession at the beginning of the Liturgy of the Word. For big feasts this procession is customarily done here. It includes dancers, women with braziers of incense balanced on their heads, and a toddler holding the Bible in a kikapu, also balanced on the head of a man. (2) When the goat was brought up as part of the offertory.

On Christmas morning I had Mass at the outstation a few kilometres outside of town. There were about ten infant baptisms. (Don't know quite how this tradition began, for the usual time for such is on the Sunday that ends the Christmas Season, the Feast of the Baptism of the Lord (this year on 10 January.) In any case, the folks at this mission parish are always so kind and patient with me and my bad Kiswahili. As I told them (in my bad Kiswahili), not only can I not speak the language properly, I can't even manage to read it properly.

I ended my post communion remarks with a call-response, which the people here love. I said Mungu-pamoja-nasi (God is among us). And they responded, Mwokozi wetu amekuja (Our saviour has come.)

Today I was not scheduled for any Mass, so I did something I rarely do: I went to our domestic chapel for Mass instead of the parish church. And not only that, I spent much of the day lounging around doing nothing -- and it was wonderful!