First [American] Christmas Away From Home

Merry (late) Christmas everyone! 

Thank you to everyone that sent me greetings, wishes, and Merry Christmas from around the world. This was my first Christmas away from home, and I didn’t know how I was going to handle it, but thanks to having so many friends over here who are going through the same thing it was fun.

I was back to settling into life in Adwa after IST last week. On Wednesday night (Christmas eve) I didn’t do anything too exciting. I bought a bottle of wine and made noodles and watched Elf. Thursday morning I went to the post office just to see if I had any other packages. I did have one from my Hill Grandparents! So I was able to go home and open 3 packages. They were all perfect in different ways. 1 had a bunch of food, 1 had a bunch of beauty supplies, and 1 had a mixture of both. I had a great Christmas with those. I’m just hoping my mom’s gets here at some point.

On Thursday in my classes I had this whole grand plan for a Christmas lesson. I was able to do part of it, but not all of my lesson I had planned. I drew a picture of a decorated Christmas tree and presents and wrote the lyrics to the first verse of “We Wish You A Merry Christmas”. I taught them to sing it and recorded them. I uploaded one of my classes singing it.

Then I handed out a star sticker to each student as a way to show them “giving gifts” without putting that idea in their minds that the firenji gives gifts. I then read them “The Night Before Christmas”. I would read a line in the old version, then explain it basic and simple terms that they would understand. I also learned a lot of Tigrinia words because I would ask what things were. They actually understood most everything, but reindeer ha.

Natalie and Swathi, 2 PCV’s from the other side of Tigray, were visiting over here so I met up with them for drinks at the draft house, then we met Jon (a VSO here), Alexa (a VSO in another town in Tigray), and Connor for dinner at the nice hotel in town because they all wanted “firenji food” for Christmas. We had a good time just hanging out and celebrating Christmas a little differently than at home.

I was able to “see” almost all of my family over the past few days. I FaceTimed into my dad’s family during our (now) annual White Elephant gift exchange. It was amazing to talk to all of them and join in on the festivities (even though they took a selfie after I was off, so I wasn’t able to be in the family picture). Waking up at 1:30am was totally worth it. Then Christmas evening I was able to Facetime into my mom’s family just to say a quick hello to the other grandparents.

Seeing my parents, siblings, grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins was difficult because I miss them so much, but I’m so glad I have the ability to see them so often.

Jessie came in on Friday afternoon and we hung out Friday evening, all day Saturday, and she is going back to her town today. We went to Jon’s for a “Christmas party” on Saturday. It was supposed to be this huge thing with a bunch of VSO’s and PCV’s from around Ethiopia and so he bought a ton of alcohol and meat, but most everyone ended up cancelling. It was still fun with just Rachelle, Jon, Connor, Jessie, Gebre and me.

Jessie and I left to meet her teacher friend from her town whose family lives in Adwa. We walked around Adwa and then had the best dinner ever. We finally made all the Thanksgiving food that my mom sent me for Thanksgiving. We made mashed potatoes, stuffing, gravy, green beans, cranberry sauce, and mac and cheese. It was the most delicious thing ever.

After that we made hot cocoa and watched “Elf”. She hasn’t seen a lot of movies that I deem are very important, so I have written down all the ones I have that she hasn’t seen, and we are going to start watching them when we see each other. Ha.

Getting on FaceBook the past few days I have seen my entire newsfeed taken up mostly with engagements and some weddings. I guess I am at that age where things are going to start happening, it’s just crazy to me when I am not even close to thinking about that. But anyways, to anyone who is engaged or married: congratulations from across the world! I am thinking of everyone back home!

New Years is soon, but of course they don’t celebrate it here (their New Years is our September 11) and it’s in the middle of the week, so like Christmas and Thanksgiving I will be teaching on both New Years Eve and New Years Day. Maybe I will do something the weekend after, but I am not entirely sure what will happen with that.

Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, and a Happy New Year from Ethiopia! <3