Final Posting of 2008- honest!

Okay, I know I said that my previous posting would be the last for 2008 but I thought it would be nice to make one final posting.

I’m writing this on December 22nd, but, oddly enough, am looking back on a lovely Christmas Day. I’ve already explained the reasons for this change of date but I have to say it went pretty well. Having spent pretty much all of their lives as expatriate kids, the boys have accepted a degree of flexibility when it comes to Christmas. I look back on lots of very happy childhood Christmases and they all followed a fairly similar pattern. They all were spent at home with family and friends; home was somewhere very wintry in the UK- either in the Midlands with Mum, Dad and Phil or spent visiting Grandparents. In any case, the whole atmosphere of Christmas which is indelibly etched in my memory is one of a dark wintry day with nobody outside- the reason being that literally everyone was inside doing more or less the same thing. The ritual of Christmas was fairly fixed anyway but the pattern was reinforced by the fact that everyone else was doing the same.

One thing we’ve had to accept living first in Egypt and second in Tanzania is that these patterns are different. This can be tough for many people. We have a friend who has felt terribly homesick (if you’re not homesick at this time of year when will you be?) She has really missed the traditional Western Christmas- turkey, Christmas trees and the suchlike, living in a culture where trees and decorations are minimal, carols are in Swahili and have little to do with King Wenceslas or Three Kings from the Orient and Christmas dinner is more likely to feature goat meat and rice than turkey and cranberry sauce.

Soma wearing her Christmas pressie- the latest fashion item in Tanzania; a Barack Obama kanga

Being a family, we don’t seem to feel quite so homesick. However, I do sometimes get a slight pang and a desire for slightly colder climes! The first Christmas we spent abroad was Christmas 2005 in Cairo. That time we had some of Soma’s relatives visiting us so Christmas Day was more or less its usual exciting self. We started off awoken by three small boys and a little baby (Rohan was only five months old at the time) and spent the morning opening presents and munching on (incredibly expensive) imported Quality Street. We had Christmas lunch as usual- turkey with all the trimmings. However, in true Cairo style the whole thing was ordered from the Marriott Hotel and was delivered right in time for lunch!!

The oddness of Christmas only really struck home when we got round to the post Christmas lunch venture outside. In the UK we’d do this fairly often- a trip to Cannock Chase or just a walk around the block; anything to burn off the calories really. In Cairo, we decided to take a felucca trip- a quick hour of boating on the Nile and watching the world go by. As we stepped outside two things struck me (obvious in retrospect but seemed to hit home on a more visceral level). Firstly, it was not a dark, cold Christmas Day but was a hot, sunny afternoon with only a couple of wispy clouds in an otherwise blue sky. The second and more profound thing was that this was just another normal day in Cairo- everyone was just going on with their business with us creating this Christmassy bubble in our house. This seems pretty obvious- how many non Muslims outside of the Arab World would take much notice of Eid for example? Not surprisingly, a 95% Muslim society paid scant attention to Christmas Day. In fact, even the 4% Copts were oblivious to the festival, as their Christmas would come much later, on the 7th of January. The sheer normality of outside life made perfect logical sense but jarred nonetheless.

Last Christmas took us by surprise a bit. We’d only arrived in Tanzania at the start of November so were still battling with getting a house, getting kids into school, starting work, making friends etc. Because Tanzania is not really a commercialised society, we didn’t have the usual warnings (Slade blasting away in the shops from October onwards for example) that you get in Britain. We did manage an enjoyable morning of opening presents and had a lovely traditional lunch at the George and Dragon. Still, coming out of the Christmas bubble and driving back along a hot dusty African road for a late afternoon swim also brought a bit of perspective to things!

Rohan working through a box of Quality Street- little so and so nicked all the hard centres!

This Christmas, we’ve taken things a step further. Because we’ll be in India we decided to celebrate Christmas early- 20th December to be precise. I have to say we had a lovely day. We started off being awoken at first light by Kieran who came in to announce that he’d found his stocking and had opened his presents. He’d been hoping for a knight’s costume but only found a small water pistol and some books in his stocking. He thought that those were the sum total of his presents. Rather than having a tantrum like many boys his age he announced very sportingly that his presents “weren’t exactly what I’d hoped for but the water pistol is very nice”. We took the little chap and his brother downstairs where they found the rest of their presents, including a very convincing knight’s costume!

I spent the morning making Christmas lunch- traditional in all respects except for the meat being chicken rather than turkey. This was nothing to do with expat life- turkey here is apparently great- and more to do with the rather small stomachs of two of our family members. Rohan did put the lie to this assumption however by demolishing more chicken than all of us put together! We spent the afternoon with our neighbour Dirk and his two boys, Jessie and Joshua before heading off to the High Commissioner’s Residence for carols in the evening. Sitting in the front room with his family and numerous other guests felt very seasonal- even Kieran had a go at singing although Rohan fell fast asleep from the first song!

Carol Singing at the High Commissioner's Residence

Since we left England in early 2005, we’ve spent every intervening Christmas abroad. 2005 was spent with Devika, Stephane and their boys in a Cairo largely oblivious to the occasion. 2006 found us in Switzerland for our only white Christmas so far, though the warm winter meant that the “snow” was mostly artificial. 2007 came just after we’d arrived in Tanzania and was spent largely in the swimming pool and the 2008 Christmas was also celebrated under the hot African sun but on the wrong date!

Sir Kieran in his newly acquired knights costume (along with his noble page Rohan)

With the possible exception of 2006, none of these could be considered to be close to the traditional Christmases of my childhood. However, we’ve honestly enjoyed every single one. I guess that, as with all expats, we’ve had to take a slightly looser view of what Christmas should be. However, we’ve tried our hardest to ensure the important stuff remains. No matter where we are, we spend the day together as a family. We make an effort to decorate the house and put up a tree. The boys get their stockings and we all open our presents together. The Cairo Christmas being the honourable exception to the rule, I generally have my traditional stress-fest and put together a lunch which everyone claims to enjoy (although Soma has to try hard to disguise her true feelings about my bread sauce)! Most importantly, we have a real sense of occasion. We start to look forward to Christmas from 1st December, when (home-made) advent calendars appear, dodgy Christmas songs get played and we just get very excited about it all. In doing this, I like to think we’ve managed to make sure that no matter where we may be, the most important parts of Christmas remain with us. I truly hope that when the boys grow up, they will look back on their Christmases as happily as I do mine.

We’re looking back on Christmas now in fact but from us to everyone still looking forward to the big day, a very Merry Christmas from the four of us.

School's Out!

So, we’re more than half way through December so I figured I’d better get my blog post in before we get into the madness of Christmas.

It’s been a very busy month so far. First and foremost, I’ve been working like a particularly industrious dog revising for and then sitting my first lot of MBA exams. Although the course is run by Warwick Business School, I was able to sit the exams right here in Dar es Salaam. This was a considerable improvement on the original plan to travel to Warwick- Britain in July was miserable enough; having to come back in the middle of winter, to a Britain more consciously fed up with life than ever before for the purpose of sitting exams might just have forced me to jump off a bridge somewhere! I’d actually managed to negotiate an exam venue in Arusha, a short flight north of here. However, when the other candidate pulled out, they agreed to get the British Council here in Dar to host my exam.

Thus it was that after weeks of study (I’m now heartily sick of Market Analysis and Operations Management) I made the short walk down to the British Council on Samora Avenue to sit the exams. I have to say, this was a world away from the Camden Town Hall, where I’d sat my last exams many years ago- for a start, it was only me, an invigilator and about ten power cuts to keep me company. Anyway, to cut a long story short, I am free of study for now, am proudly sporting my first exam writing callous (I’ve forgotten how hard it is to do handwriting- wouldn’t imagine I won the handwriting prize in primary school!) in years and am looking forward to Christmas with a vengeance!

The Christmas season is now well underway here. It does seem a bit odd to be honest- the hallway is the proud venue for our large tree, imported from Cairo and all the neighbours kids seem to like it. However, we’re also at the height of summer- outside it’s absolutely blazing hot with the sun beating down from a cloudless blue sky. It’s meant to be rainy season right now, but, a couple of cloudbursts notwithstanding, it’s about as rainy right now as Cairo was in August. Trying to get in the Christmas mood is a battle of wills in the Chubb household- shut the curtains, get Slade or Wizzard blasting away on the hifi and crank up the AC to try and get a wintry feel! So far we’re fooling nobody but having a lot of fun trying!

We hosted a small Christmas party on Sunday- just a few friends round for drinks and minced pies (and my attempt at pigs in blankets- very nice!) Kieran wanted to stay up late but I sent him packing after he insisted on sitting in the middle of the party and playing his bongo drums! The mulled wine went down pretty well- took a lot of practice and tasting that one! The mulled wine was a bit of an Anglo Tanzania trade off- the spices are brilliant here so it tastes great. However, as I mentioned, we’re not really having mulled wine weather right now. Call me Mr Picky but I’m not exactly desperate to sip a hot glass of the stuff in the front of a roaring fire!

Anyway, the social events keep coming along. Last Saturday we took the boys to the circus of all places. This exciting event was put on by Mama Africa and took place in a traditional big top just up the road next to the Seacliffe Hotel. This was an animal free circus- no need to be seeing lions and elephants here I guess (though the ones we saw in the Serengeti weren’t swinging on trapezes so it could have been interesting I suppose. Anyway, we were certainly not disappointed. The acrobats- a mixture of Tanzanians and South Africans- were out of this world. From the graceful young lady doing the trapeze act to the skinny contortionist climbing through a tennis racket, these people were just phenomenally talented. The look on Kieran’s face was priceless- sheer wonder at what he was seeing. Lucky him- he gets to see the show again later this week! Sadly for us we had to finish at half time- Rohan was getting bored. We left Kieran with a friend of his and got the full report of the second act from a very excited little boy!

So, what is left to do? I’ve got the last few days of work this week and then Saturday is our rescheduled Christmas Day. We decided to change Christmas this year because of our trip to India. I’ve told Kieran that we need to change the day because Santa might get confused if he tries to deliver presents to Tanzania and finds we’re in India. In reality I just don’t want to lug a load of presents all the way to India and back- the boys are buying my explanation though so I’m sticking to it!

So, Christmas Day is 20th December this year- presents in the morning, Christmas lunch as soon as I finish my annual punch up with the turkey and then on to the British High Commission for a carol service- can’t wait.

I guess this will be my last posting of 2008- we’re off to India soon so I’ll not be writing any more till we get back. It’s been a good year, this first full year in Tanzania. We’ve found a great place to live, met some wonderful friends, found good schools for the boys, travelled a bit and (in my case at least) managed to do some work too!

There’s a lot to look forward to in 2009. I’ve got more MBA stuff to do- may be almost there by this time next year! We’ve got some more trips lined up- me to Mozambique and the UK for work and study, all of us to the UK for Phil’s wedding, possible visit to Florida in summer and somewhere nice (don’t know where yet!) later in the year. We’re hoping to receive some more guests in the year- Phil and Daniella have promised to come as have a few other friends. By the way, any friend or relative feeling like some sun is welcome to come on over here

On a final optimistic and aspirational note, I’ll also have another two chances (in July and December) to remember our wedding anniversary for the first time ever (sorry Soma!) Getting congratulatory phone calls from my in laws first thing in the morning is very nice but it does mean I get it in the neck!