It’s beginning to look a lot like Christmas

Ahhhh Christmas time, mistletoe and wine (minus the mistletoe and wine unfortunately :p) I look outside my window and feel the sweat start to drip down my neck and I know it’s the Christmas season but it just feels all wrong. I should be choosing out a new set of gloves, gorging on gluten free mince pies and sitting on Father Christmas’s knee telling him what I want for Christmas (okay I got a little carried away with the latter but you understand) But you know what? I wouldn’t change being here right now for the world. I am surrounded by love, faith, happiness, beautiful children and a tremendous view of Kilimanjaro. What more could I want?

 My 3^rd and 4^th graders and I have began the process of transforming our classroom into a Christmas bonanza, with a lack of coloured paper, Christmas trees, tinsel and Christmas lights, we had to use our imaginations to create that Christmassy feeling.

Making salt dough christmas decorations. (so not gonna lie they all thought id brought in cookies so making decorations was a bit of a blow)

The finished product:

It’s less than a week until the big Christmas production arrrrghh! (Breathe holly breath) So writing and directing a production is a lot more work than I had anticipated. Along with the play you have to then think about the set, costumes, music and believe me they are a lot harder work in Africa. That is why I am so grateful to my other teachers for all pitching in and helping make the practice run so smoothly (just)

The children are great and are all super excited about the coming play. I have some real budding actors amongst the midst. Along with acting the children have got involved with all aspects of the drama such as painting the drop, making props, costume design and creating the Play’s Programme.

I love teaching drama and am too excited for the performance to take place. I had each child involved in the production to draw their character and then stuck them all together to create the front cover of the play’s programme. It turned out really cute.

In addition to making Christmas crafts at school, us teachers have been busy at home also. Making out house festive to the best of our abilities.

our christmas decorations cardboard and twigs. simples

nativity made from Banana leaves

twigs glued together in 

We also decided to bless all the other missionary’s out here with carol singing. We dressed complete with woolly hats (which resulted in a bucket full of sweaty hair) and candles (unlit, they are to precious in times of power cuts) and went one by one to each house and sang a medley of Oh come all ye faithful, a mash up of Away in a Manger English/American (yes there are 2 different versions) and ended with the crowd pleaser that is We wish you a Merry Christmas.

It was such a joyful Christmassy night, and the last house we went to invited us in for soup (shame it wasn’t actually cold as hot soup would have been so nice, I mean it was nice anyway but you know what I mean)

And then just as teachers do when the kids are away we all had an indoor water fight, it got rather messy but was refreshingly good and cooled us all down.

I will now leave you with a glimpse of the joy that I get to experience each and everyday.

Presents, chocolates and Christmas trees are nice but living in Tanzania with these kids and seeing them grow and smile every day (well most days depending on the amount of work I throw at them lol) is priceless. (Oh crickey I sound like the MasterCard adverts)