Weekly News: December 2015

Christmas in Guyana 2015

Well it’s pretty amazing that another Christmas is rolling our way. My neighbors here in Guyana are getting ready as they do every year by washing or replacing all the curtains in their houses (aka. blinds), washing rugs and plastic flower displays. They are also decorating artificial trees and stringing lights. Christmas carols are blasting from mini-buses, homes, and street corners.

And the baking, oh the baking. In my Styrofoam box that I receive from my neighbor, will be a selection of traditional Guyanese sweets. These may or may not include black cake, sponge cake, cassava cake with raisons, mitai, vermicelli, gulab jamun, pine tart, sweet rice, sugar cake, parsad, sarnie, Kesar peda, vanilla fudge. Hmm, I can’t wait.

At Cornelia Ida Primary, the kids are sizzling with anticipation in hopes that Christmas vacation soon will be here. Each class performs in the Christmas program which was kept blessedly short this year. Teachers record the test scores for first term on the following day and then it’s party time!! Students dress up in their finest. Mothers bring foods for a feast, and after everyone has had their fill, it’s outside for dancing. A disc jockey is hired and throughout lunch he entertains with the traditional Christmas carols but soon it’s disco city with, “Shake Your Bum Bum.” Those kids can shake not only their bum bums but everything that’s attached to those bum bums. It brought a smile to my face, no actually I was giggling out loud, to watch their moves and interpretations.

We send the kids home after half day on Friday, and then it’s time for the teachers to party and feast. Every gathering I’ve ever attended in Guyana has the following menu: chicken (fixed in various ways, but usually barbequed or curried), cook-up (rice with bits of carrot, corn, onions, and whatever you want to throw in), potato salad, macaroni and cheese, lettuce w/cucumbers. So this year I’m bringing mango salsa with chips. I’ll see if anyone eats it. My Guyanese friends, not all, but a huge majority are reluctant to try different foods from what they are so accustomed to eating. Indian weddings are a little different. They serve seven curries (pumpkin, bolange & eddoes, potato & chana, calaloo, dal, mango) on a leaf that looks like a giant lily pad and is called puri leaf. If you prefer to have your mouth on fire then you can add achar, a hot pepper sauce that most Hindi and Guyanese embrace like candy.

So really Christmas is no different here than in a vast majority of places: feasting, drinking, and dancing, the universal language.