Posts tagged ‘christmas’

Ethiopian Christmas

After the previous two long weekends for Christmas and New Year, we now have a third for Orthodox Christmas. Officially only Thursday 7th was a public holiday, but many people have taken Friday as holiday too. My second Christmas in less than two weeks was a fairly quiet affair, visiting my colleague Samrawit and her family for lunch, drinks and cake.

My 2nd Christmas in Ethiopia

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A belated Happy Christmas to everyone!

Despite being quite a long way from the cold snowy weather in the UK, we still managed a reasonable attempt at a (vaguely) traditional Christmas. This year we invited people over to our house for dinner, drinks and games. A few volunteers from nearby (well, Mike had a 2 day bus trip to reach us) towns and other friends and colleagues from Mekelle joined us. Everyone contributed to the food and drink, Mike (a different one) made some great roast beef and Daan and Anita brought roast potatoes and lots more, then we had meat and veggie chillis plus veggie curry. Our drink of choice was mulled wine – it’s one of the only ways to make the local wine drinkable, and dessert was a selection of cake, panna cotta, jelly and angel delight.

After a bloated afternoon we were ready to play a few games in the evening. Pass the parcel was first, though no-one seemed too keen on the forfeits we’d put in between some of layers. Then we played the chocolate game (the one where you roll a die, if you get a 6 you put on hat, gloves and scarf then eat as much chocolate with knife and fork as you can before someone else rolls a 6), our improvised die may have accounted for the high number of sixes that came up.

So in true Christmas fashion, two days later we’re still working our way through the leftover food and drink.

roast beef and potatoes

roast beef and potatoes


Mike, Martin and Mike

Mike, Martin and Mike


Marcel

Marcel


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