Usually in America on December 24th I would be
running around doing some last minute gift shopping, but when you live in a
village and vegetables and meat are not on your gift list you start baking
instead. (There was a big market today which contained many people eagerly awaiting
their once-a-year piece of meat and tomatoes and onions to cook it with.) Today was full of baked goods as I made banana bread, brownies, and cookie bars for the
next day. Oh, and I cannot forget the gingerbread house. One of my family traditions every Christmas season is for each
child in my family to make a gingerbread house and then display them in a row so that on Christmas Eve my
grandparents analyze each one and try and guess who made what house and why. I knew my family would carry on
the tradition this year, and I was not going to let a few thousand miles
between us separate that tradition so I made one from Uganda. Now it is much
harder to make one here when you don’t have the milk carton you normally use as
your base and instead have to cut and tape up a cereal box to use. Additionally, my
candy supply was severely limited to a few pieces of candy Anne’s parents had
sent from home and a package of M&Ms from town. To top it all off we had no canned
frosting so I had to attempt to make it from scratch, it ended up working although the frosting was a bit runny and did not stick quite as well as the packaged kind.
Sister Edith and Katusabe
were in the kitchen when I was assembling my house, and they had never heard of
a gingerbread house before and subsequently were struggling to grasp what the final
product would look like. After I had finished one side of the house with the
help of M&Ms, biscuits, peanuts, and a twizzler and created an African grass thatched roof by
putting some random herb from the kitchen (at least I think it was an edible
herb) on the top I was able to convince Katusabe
that she should decorate the other side.She did a nice job, and added some African style security lights on the side to
complete the look. The house was not as fully decorated as the houses I am
used to making back in America, but given our limited supply of resources I
have to say it looked good.
To carry on my family tradition at dinner we had
everyone guess who completed which side of the gingerbread house, and then
Sister Edith, Katusabe, and I described what each piece of candy represented
(ex: yellow M&M was the sun, purple air head was new life, brown M&M
was the soil from the manger or ashes, a cross for Jesus life, etc.) Now my
family also likes to vote on whose house is best. Well, my sister Kari thinks
that without my presence at home this year her house will get top honors,
however, Kari you have yet to see the house Katusabe and I made...you have competition!
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