A Jolly Juba Christmas

HAPPY CHRISTMAS to you all! 

We hope you have had a wonderful Christmas. 

Here in Juba, our streets have no special lights, there are no Christmas trees on street corners, no decorations, no Carols or Christmas music blaring out of speakers in the small shops... Despite the lack of these outward signs of Christmas, we have had plenty going on to make Christmas special this year!

Our tinsel wreath is on the door, our trusty Christmas tree purchased in Dodoma is surviving another year of children festooning it with home-made decorations and I have over-played our CD of Carols until we can recite all the words by heart!
Yesterday, we sat down to cold, roast chicken and pasta salad for our Christmas lunch and enjoyed our Juba-style ice-cream for dessert. Santa even found his way to South Sudan and filled the children's stockings :-) It was a jolly Juba Christmas celebration!

Our celebrations for Christmas started on December 9th, when Joel's school had their Nativity Play. Joel featured as Joseph, while Esther and Ben were invited to be the narrators.

On December 11th, there was the MAF staff Christmas party, for both local and international staff, There were Carols and speeches and a delicious buffet lunch at a local hotel.

Time for Carols with our informal MAF choir:

That evening, we went to Carols by the Nile, organised by our church. Esther did a reading, then joined Ben and the other children to sing, "Away in a Manger".

I sang as part of the choir:

Once again, it was a most special setting! As the sun set over the river, the fairy lights lit up the African night and the Carols rang out across the dark riverside. 

On Christmas Eve, we joined our Dutch friends, the same as we did last year. They organise the wonderful distribution of food parcels in the slum areas of Juba every Christmas. People in Holland help to send funds to purchase all that is needed for 450 food parcels.

We helped to pack these food parcels on December 23rd. Each packet contains enough for a family to make a decent meal:

- charcoal (essential when you have to cook outside on a fire: no kitchens or ovens in the slums)

-a 500ml water bottle, filled with cooking oil

- a bag of sugar (3 cups measured into the bag)

-a bag of beans

- a bag of flour

-some biscuits

- 2 packets of milk powder

-10 packets of loose-leaf tea

-a small bag of salt

- a bar of laundry soap for washing clothes

Imagine that this bag contained what would be your Christmas dinner.

Could you imagine having to queue up, along with over 300 others, in the blistering heat of South Sudan's sun, to collect your Christmas dinner? 

This is what I was thinking as I joined the distribution team down at the cemetery, where hundreds of families live in make-shift tents. This place, where the sight that assaults my eyes is squalour and deep poverty. I wanted to cry as I stepped through the small entrance and into this world of poverty and need. 

The actual entrance to the cemetery has been blocked up in an official endeavor to discourage people from living there. But when people have nowhere to go, blocking up the wall won't stop them from moving into this large, open area. In the cemetery there is enough space to set up many make-shift houses. Blocking the entrance doesn't solve the problem- desperate people fleeing conflict elsewhere in the country need somewhere to go. The numbers of people living in the cemetery has actually increased this year. 

Since there is no way in, people have simply pulled a few bricks out of the wall, where we could "stoop" our way in. I had to bend right over to climb through this low space.

As news spread that the food parcels were ready to be distributed, the line of people waiting began to form, weaving around make-shift shelters which are home for so many:

Each recipient has to show a card that they were given earlier in the week and this allows them to collect a parcel. It is well planned and organised. The people came forward one by one and presented their cards and in exchange, received their parcel:

Meanwhile, Andrew and the children had gone to another area where there is a sort of "shanty-town". It is not as crowded there and not as intimidating for our young children, who are not used to being in this environment of extreme poverty. They joined in with a team of local teenage girls to collect the cards and distribute the yellow food parcel bags.

Esther ticks the card of this friendly Granny and hands the parcel to her:

Below. Esther and two of the girls from our team hand out food parcels to the families living in these shelters. The charcoal will be used as fuel for the cooking pot outside. The large yellow container is the water supply for these homes: families either purchase water from local water-sellers, who ride with these containers on their bikes, or they may send the children down to the river Nile to fetch water:

Joel helps Dad with the giving of this parcel:

I don't believe that Christmas is much of a jolly occasion for people living without means and where daily life is a struggle for food and safety. However, we hope that the parcels given out bring more than food, as they show people that they are remembered and that others care. 

(Photo credit: Sonja and Judith- with thanks!)