Holiday observations

The week between Christmas and New Year’s is full of holiday celebrations. The month preceding it is not full of preparations like we do in the States; it seems like the preparations only begin about 3 days prior. Then are the stores full of shoppers. Prices for certain foods inflate—eggs, sugar, shortening (baking things), spaghetti, sodas—foods that generally would be used to make holiday foods. For example, normally the cost per individual egg is 3.5 meticais ($0.14), but during the holidays, prices rose to 5 meticais ($0.20) per egg, making a dozen (as I like to buy them) over $2.00 or a “favo” (carton of 30 eggs) over $5.00.

As we have written before Mozambique is LOUD. During the holidays it is louder with people partying together. Some people make money by brewing their own alcohol and then “advertising” by blaring music through loudspeakers until the supply is finished. Someone who lives some where in our neighborhood frequently graces the neighbors with the same music over and over again; it was no different this holiday. In addition to the impromptu liquor selling, people are at home with many guests and so play music loudly as they sit around and visit.

In general, people like to “passear” (literally “to go out and about”, means more taking a walk with the intention of hanging out). The holidays increase this and we have watched more people out, dressed up and walking with friends.

Churches seem to not do much to celebrate Christmas. There seems to be few songs if any for the Christmas season other than those translated into Portuguese, like many of our carols are translated from German into English. At all the church services we attended—ours and at Maforga—the songs sung were the usual praise songs. When Joél and I sang “O Come All Ye Faithful” (in English) at our church, people seemed to like it because it was so different than their usual melodies. Christmas was only mentioned the Sunday prior to the 25th. But we account that for our church being comprised of mostly new Christians and low attendance (14 adults) that Sunday. We were thankful to attend the Christmas Eve Service at our church—to celebrate Jesus’ birth with other Christians.

New Years is a bigger holiday. Many people were walking around. Many people had guests in their homes. In the hours leading up to the New Year, people played loud music, set off small fireworks and ate together. Joél went to church to the all night service; I was too tired from my baking classes so stayed home. At midnight, I was awoken by a fireworks display, so watched it from our spare bedroom.

The next morning—New Year’s day—people were obviously because it was quiet for a few hours (except for the neighbor once again blasting their alcohol music). We spent the day in Chimoio with other MCCers, enjoying the quiet of their neighborhood. In the evening, we could tell the next day was a work day because few people were walking around and it was more like normal life.