A Merry Christmas at Baphumelele

I worked the Christmas shift at Baphumelele and it ranks as one of the most memorable ones I’ve spent. Actually, in some ways, it seemed that Christmas arrived at Baphumelele about the same time as I did. Since early December, one organization or group of people after another – even tour groups out on various “township tours” – stopped by to donate food, clothes and toys for the children. One humorous moment happened on the Sunday before Christmas. As I headed out the gates of the toddler house with the children to walk down to church that Sunday (held in the dining room, below our volunteer apartment), a van of people from Taiwan pulled up. “CHINA! CHINA!” all the kids screamed. I cannot get them to say my name but here they were screaming out the name of an Asian country (albeit the wrong one)! This group, a youth organization from Taiwan, delivered individual “goodie bags” for all the children.
Christmas activities began in earnest on Christmas Eve night. The Xhosa people do celebrate the Christian holidays, and they attend church every Sunday, but they also follow some of their own Xhosa traditions (such as formal circumcision ceremonies when Xhosa boys turn 18 years old). However, they do not go overboard at Christmas – you won’t see houses decorated with lights, or many Christmas trees, and not a lot of gifts are bought – they simply cannot afford to go overboard. The volunteers, however, spent a lot of time with the children a few weeks before Christmas making Christmas decorations which we hung up, along with some lights and tinsel, in the toddler house and the church (a/k/a dining room) before Christmas Eve.

All of the children, even the very youngest ones who had been bathed and put in their little pajamas, gathered down in the church at sunset on Christmas Eve night. Rosie, dressed as “Mother Christmas” with a fur shawl around her shoulders and what looked like an Easter hat on her head, told a Christmas story to the children. She spoke in Xhosa, so I could not begin to tell you what the story entailed, but she told the story with such great enthusiasm and animation that, despite its length of over 30 minutes, it kept the children entertained. After she finished with her story we, the volunteers, handed out candles to all of the children to use on a candle light walk back down Dabula Street to the toddler house. Most of the toddlers immediately tried to eat their candles, and what should have been a slow walk while singing carols turned into a mad dash down the street. As soon as everyone finally made their way to the toddler house, we did sing a few Christmas carols – well, everyone only new the words to two of them – Silent Night and We Wish You A Merry Christmas, each of which we probably sang 5 times. Then, we put the toddlers to bed and made popcorn covered in melted chocolate for the care workers who spent the Christmas Eve night in the toddler house.

At 4:45 a.m. on Christmas morning, the 4 of us volunteers, plus Jayney (the woman from New York who is trying to adopt) arose and started cooking breakfast for everyone at Baphumelele – 150 people in total – that’s 250 scrambled eggs, 200 buttered rolls, 6 watermelons, 12 cantaloupes, 6 pineapples, 4 vats of orange juice and 2 industrial-sized jars of ketchup! Our healthy breakfast competed with the candy from the small stockings filled with treats that all the children received that morning. After breakfast, each child at Baphumelele received a new clothing outfit and pair of shoes. Everyone was so excited and watching them all put these new clothes on melted my heart!

After everyone was dressed, we headed back to the dining room – now the church – for a Christmas service and the handing out of gifts by Rosie. Each child received a wrapped gift from their wish list, all donated items – there were toy trucks, stuffed bears, games, radios and baby dolls galore! Once all the gifts had been unwrapped, a DJ played music and we all danced. I’ve decided I really like dancing with one kid on the left hip, one kid on the right hip, one hanging on my left leg, one on the right leg and a few jumping on my back! We topped the day off with a huge braii (bbq) of bbq’d chicken, ribs, potato salad and, of course, rice, prepared by the long-term volunteers, the Germans, and ate out on the lawn of the crèche playground. By the end of the day, exhausted and full, all of the children went to sleep immediately, some before we made it back to the toddler house. What a day…Christmas!

(Pictured: Me serving breakfast; Jessica, Asemahle and Lukahlo in their new clothes; Rosie handing a gift to Nenana)