Christmas

Since Thanksgiving passed as an ordinary day here in Bolivia, I was looking forward for Christmas and the holiday season. I was very excited to see how a different culture celebrates the birth of Jesus. This would also be the first time I would celebrate Christmas in 90 degree weather, along with rain instead of snow. Not something I particularly appreciate because I miss the cold weather and snow, but I do realize others would gladly spend Christmas in a warmer environment. However location should not make a difference since or focus is on something more.

Christmas Eve started like any other day, but soon evolved into a food extravaganza. The MCC couple and myself planned dinner with another MCC couple because we had yet to be invited to another celebration. The other family are also new to Bolivia and have yet to establish many relationships. However later that day someone did finally invite us, well actually two families extended an invitation. Not wanting to cancel plans with anyone, we went ahead and ate dinner at 6:00 with the MCC couple even though we would have more food later that evening. We then went to mass at San Silvestre where the MCC couple (Chris and Lindsay) and my host family attend.

The Christmas Eve service resembled a typical mass. There were literary readings, music and communion. However, at the end of the service everyone lined up to have the baby Jesus from their nativity scenes blessed. They would later be added to the nativity scenes after midnight, when it was officially Christmas. Infant baptisms then took place after the whole service was done. All in all it was a very nice service and I was thankful I could attend a Christmas Eve service. Had I been part of an Evangelical church here in Bolivia, I would not have attended one because they don´t have Christmas Eve services since they want to be distinctly different from the Catholic Church. I might also mention that we got invited to another meal after the service. That meant we had to fit in three more meals before going to bed. For one that is difficult because two of the meals needed to be completed within 2 hours and secondly our guts were in for some serious torment.

We managed to attend two of the invitations within an hour and a half. Pork, yucca (similar to a potato, very filling), rice, potato salads and pop were served at both and we had the joy of looking forward to the same meal at the next house. I was stuffed after my second meal and the third was just painful. The other two volunteers were feeling the same. However denying the next family´s hospitality would have been rude so after finishing our third meal we painfully jogged to our final invitation because we were running late. We arrived just as they started to serve one another.

I don´t know where I put my final meal, but it was definitely not enjoyable. I never thought I would have to say that. I was just glad they didn´t offer me seconds. Anyways after the meal we were then entertained with two hours of fireworks. A Bolivian tradition is to light off a hoard of fireworks during celebrations, thus it felt more like the fourth of July than Christmas. Finally at two in the morning we hobbled home and went to bed, only to look forward to a large Christmas meal the next day.

Christmas day is very relaxed here in Bolivia and everyone sleeps and rests from the previous nights festivities. So we ended up having a delicious meal at the MCC center. We then returned in the afternoon because we were supposed to practice for a dance, but that ended up getting postponed to Saturday.(I felt privileged to participate in a native dance despite my lack of grace and smooth, rhythmic movement) Instead we relaxed in the afternoon and opened a couple of presents in the evening. All in all it was a very good Christmas and I am very interested in seeing how the New Year celebration will proceed.