‘Tis the Holiday Season … or is it?

Sitting here in the dark (we’ve been without electricity for the past six hours or so, with no knowledge of when it will come back on – probably not any time soon), I realized that one of the only ways I know that it is actually the holiday season by opening up a newspaper and seeing advertisements with a skinny young black man sporting a clearly fake white beard as Santa Claus. Indeed, tomorrow is Christmas, a day of feasts for many of us, and a really bad day to be a goat.

You would not know that it was the day before Christmas if you walked through Loitokitok – there is no Christmas decorations (except for a couple of strands of Christmas lights at the local bank), no Christmas music blaring out of shops (as reported by the other trainees – tho one of the corner shops continues to blare its customary bad American music), and for all I know it could be a normal day in April, except for all the talk about killing goats.

As I said, tomorrow is a very bad day to be a male goat (according to Kenyans, the male ones taste better). Most of our families plan to slaughter a goat tomorrow morning, and cooking up a huge feast. It is considered an honor to be the one to kill the goat, and this honor usually belong to the oldest son at home – which many of the male trainees are. So – this poses an interesting challenge to many of them.

One particular fellow was told that he was expected to kill the goat, eat the tongue, liver, heart, the testicles, and parts of the head cooked in its own blood. This is the same man who felt dizzy and a little faint when a volunteer spoke about killing a chicken. All day today he was like, this is the first Christmas that I am really dreading.

So, yeah, we’re eating a goat tomorrow. I am not exactly sure what my role in the whole slaughter business will be, but I am extremely happy that I have a brother and sister-in-law who did a great job of preparing me for whatever I will have to deal with tomorrow. A full report of the festivities will be sure to come.

Speaking of festivities, last Saturday I went to my Aunt’s house to celebrate the graduation of Mama and Aunt from a college in Uganda. It was a very traditional Kenyan celebration – which means a lot of singing, dancing, and speeches, and that it will run about two or three hours past the expected end time. It was fun to watch a traditional Kenyan and Maasai (Mama and Aunt’s tribe) celebration.

As for New Year’s, the Deaf Ed trainees plan to reserve a couple of cottages so we can spend the night exchanging photos, music, watch a few episodes of The Office, and basically have a very traditional American New Year’s Eve celebration.

On that note – I want to wish all of you Happy Hanukkah, Merry Christmas, a fantastic New Year’s, and may 2009 bring good health and fortune!