Road to Rwanda----Christmas Traditions

 

I thoroughly enjoyed reading Dicken’s  A Christmas Carol  to my middle school students this December.  However, it did open up many sentiments and thoughts in my own mind as I processed the differences between US and Rwandan Christmas traditions.  As one of the anticipatory set activities before we read A Christmas Carol, I had them discuss (agree/disagree) with a list of statements.  One of the items was the statement: “Christmas traditions are important.”  Almost complete unanimity on their part that they were NOT important.  As I questioned further, I found out that none of them really receive Christmas presents.  These are not at all destitute students.  Most of their parents pay a nice tuition sum for their attendance at our school.  They are middle and upper middle-class children. The more I thought about this, the more my heart was hurt. The next day I told them that this fact brought tears to my eyes.  (Being middle schoolers, their response was “Does that mean you are going to buy us presents?”  I told them, “No, maybe bake you some cookies.”)  I started to weigh in my mind how I abhor the materialism of Christmas within my culture, but when faced with NO presents for CHILDREN, I did not equate that with materialistic tendencies. 

I am told by numerous sources that Christmas here might, (might) involve a good meal, but probably very little else.  Even our church has sung only 2 Christmas carols.  I reflected on other countries I had been in for Christmas’s past.  All had presents on some level (except maybe Zambia, where I had always been gone from my village setting to spend Christmas with the other missionaries, so I did not really know.)  I shutter remembering that the mural in the front of our church every Christmas in Taiwan was of Santa and his sleigh.  I remembered the dressed up Santa’s  posted in front of stores in Senegal to lure customers in.  Now Black Santa’s were really cool, but I could have taken my hands and almost encircled the big black Santa belt around their waists.  So Black Santa’s, cool; Emaciated Santa’s, not so much. So I know there is the extradition of some of our cultural Christmas baggage I did not find attractive.

Then on the first Tuesday in December it was my turn to escort a class, this time grade 7, to the pediatric ward in the local hospital with bags of food we had all donated.  I thought it would be really fun to give the sick children an extra treat, and I brought my few Christmas items of clothing: an elves’ t-shirt, a Rudolph sweat shirt, and two reindeer antler head dresses.  My 7^th graders were excited about wearing them and immediately donned them.  But when we got to the hospital, the social worker assigned to escort us to the ward, took one look and asked, “What are those?”, referring to the reindeer antlers.  We explained.  She was not quite convinced but let it pass. I whispered to the school director, “Should we take them off?”  His answer, “No, they think we are weird anyway.” That did not provide the comfort I think he intended it to. So, again, I was faced with a Christmas situation that had no meaning, almost a negative connotation, that to me was good and fun and even important.

Pray for your missionaries near and far this Christmas. Not just because they are missing family (which is certainly the main concern) but also because they are engaged in cross-culturally reflections.  I continue to struggle to enjoy the Christmas paraphernalia (or lack thereof) here, now, in Rwanda.  I will go to an Anglican service on Christmas Day with friends, because our church is not having services for the next 2 weeks. I will have a warm and friendly Christmas Day  meal with friends from Texas, Zimbabwe, Zambia, Rwanda…..and I have also decided that giving presents to children on Christmas is not dictated totally by our materialistic obsessions, but is rather a reflection of thanking God “for His Unspeakable Gift”.