Christmas at Jisonayilli

“Oh the weather outside is frightful…”

True, it’s not the blizzardy, snowy weather this Christmas song leads one to visualize, but the weather that this Christmas season is accompanied by here in Ghana is equally frightful to me. I believe I have already mentioned the harmattan before, but I am now truly experiencing the extent of this evil wind, and a whole new season has replaced the tolerable humidity that marked the tail end of the rainy season. The harmattan is a wind that blows in from the Sahara desert, bringing enough dust with it that the city can sometimes look like everyone decided to burn their garbage on the same day. (Fusi told me that further north, the dust gets so bad that you can’t see the headlights of cars infront of you. I told him I could picture this dilemma..it would be the same as a snow storm at home.) The harmattan wind makes a significant impact on the climate- the evenings and mornings are very cool (for us), dropping to around 8 degrees or so and accompanied by a light mist. Then, after the sun has made its breathtaking appearance on the African horizon and settled in nicely above the tree line, an intense heat quickly replaces the cool morning air. The wind blows in hot and dry, just like a Saskatchewan day in the height of summer. In fact, though the heat here is something I can’t say I’ve ever experienced before (and I’m told we haven’t reached the peak yet), the terrain is looking oddly familiar to a prairie girl. The leaves are becoming dry and yellow, falling from their branches like an elm tree in the autumn. Most of the fields have been harvested and all that remains outside the city limits are dry, yellow remnants of various crops lying in rows of dirt, broken up by some random trees along the way and dry, wild grasses flickering in the wind. The days seem long and hazy, like those last couple of weeks in August where the only thing that moves with any vitality, unhindered by the heat, is the wind. I think my body is a little confused…it feels almost like Saskatchewan on an August day, but it’s the middle of December and Christmas is around the corner. Maybe this is what bears feel like when they accidentally come out of hibernation too early ; ) haha

So amid this strange new season, we hosted our first Christmas party at Jisonayilli this past Saturday. Kristine, my roommate from Denmark, will be travelling home on Friday and her mother has been staying with us for the past week- we wanted to hold an African Christmas party before they left. On Saturday morning Morgan and Tanya hosted a “group meeting” where we indulged on fresh pineapples, watermelon, oranges and imported coffee and set out to delegate everyone’s tasks for the day and create a menu as close to the traditional Christmas dinners each of us knew from home. We agreed that Morgan would use his motorcycle to get the groceries, Victor would get the produce from the market (yes, it was quite a risk we took….we actually sent two men out to do the grocery shopping, haha); Nichole was to pick up the bread for stovetop stuffing, Kristine and her mom went to King David’s Inn to pre-order the guinea fowls that would be substituting the turkey, and I ran home to work on a secret project ; ) ; )

In addition to preparing the dinner, we decided to do a gift exchange game that Victor knew of so each of us had to come up with 2 gifts under 2 cedis. We decided that the small tree growing in the “courtyard” of our house (approximately a 10 foot by 10 foot square of soil with one tree growing in it that the middle of the house has been built around) would serve as a wonderful Charlie Brown Christmas tree- so of course Christmas decorations were also going to be necessary.

This is how it all panned out:

My “secret” was a large gingerbread house, which I had begun in the wee hours that morning. I ran home while everyone was bustling about with errands to get all the walls baked before everyone got home. Then Morgan, Kristine and I set out to make it into an extravagant centre piece/dessert. (That ones for you mom…the cookie traditions you started are imbedded in me : )

As for the Christmas tree decorations, Nichole and Kristine crafted some very impressive, and good-looking angels. They used coloured paper to make into cones for the base of the angel’s body and then used the pink foam that the imported apples come in to make wings. To top them off, Nichole found a large newspaper clipping she had brought from home with the faces of some of Canada’s famous media figures…so Rick Mercer, Peter Mansbridge and friends became the faces of our lovely Christmas ornaments.

Our dinner turned out magnificently- the menu featured guinea fowl, stove top stuffing, Danish stuffing (roasted apples, raisins, onions and nuts in a spicy juice), scalloped potatoes and fresh salad. For dessert we had the gingerbread house, Shawn’s rice pudding and marzipan, nougat, spice cookies and Finnish Fingers (shortbread) brought in straight from Denmark by Kristine’s mom. To wash it all down, Kristine’s mom mixed a warm batch of gloggi (the warm, spiced red wine that I had when I was in Finland!). In the mask of the darkness outside and the glow of the candles inside, one could nearly convince themselves that there actually was snow beyond those dark windows. (It also kind of felt like we were the orphans in Neverland who had finally found a mother, haha).

One of the neatest things about our dinner was sharing it with our Ghanaian friends. Assiah, her brother Tommy, and her friend Martia agreed to come and try all of the food. Before we all began to eat, Nichole had each of us go around and name one thing that we are thankful for (instead of saying grace because we had a number of faiths represented at the table). Every one of us spoke of how grateful we were simply to spend time with such wonderful people and to share this special meal together. After my turn had passed I looked at all the smiling faces, glowing in the candle light. Here we were, a truly diverse group of people from Africa, Europe and North America, of all ages, Muslims and Christians alike, sharing a meal together and expressing our gratitude simply for being able to spend time with one another. I tried to freeze time for a moment and take a picture in my mind- this was such a special moment…it was the kind of thing that Christmas is all about.

After our meal we had a great time with the gift exchange and among some of the more original gifts, some went home with: pomeade from Nigeria, a shea butter soap bar, a pineapple…and my ultimate favourite- an umbrella tree!!! (remember that show Carly?)