Did they know it was Christmas time at all?

Back home I expect the Christmas decorations will have come down, post Christmas sales are in full swing and people’s ears will be spared Band Aid on the radio for another ten months or so. Christmas in Zambia was certainly different to home. Whilst the expensive shops in Lusaka and other big towns were probably decorated like at home most Zambians would not have had means to decorate their homes.

Most people I talked to weren’t making a big deal of Christmas. For many Christmas day was going to involve going to church and having a family meal. For a small number of others it was just like a bank holiday and an opportunity to spend the day in a bar drinking. It also seems Rudolf and his fellow reindeer don’t have the distance capability to allow Santa Claus to visit children here.

At home almost every patient in the hospital wants to be discharged before Christmas. In the week leading up to Christmas on St Augustine I was surprised to find many patients not bothered whether they had to stay in over the weekend or not. However come Christmas day the ward was just half full, even paeds wasn’t too busy despite the fact malaria season is upon us now. The age limit on paeds isn’t fourteen or sixteen like at home, all children admitted over ten years are on the adult wards. As all the kids in Mbusa are getting small presents for Christmas I try to find something for a twelve year old and a thirteen year old on St Augustine. I find a football left behind by the Irish medical students in the summer and a kite left behind by a Cornish dentist.

I decide to give the kite to the younger child as I don’t think he is up to playing football. After the ward round on Christmas morning I try to instil some Christmas cheer by making a fool of myself running up and down outside the ward getting the kite to fly in the absence of much breeze. Joseph smiles a little but doesn’t seem overly impressed probably understandable as he has just started HIV medicines a few days before and is breathless even at rest from cardiomyopathy and bronchiectasis (heart and lung damage secondary to chronic infection). His form does improve after a few days when he is well enough to be discharged home.

There is a special Christmas lunch for the patients served up by the doctors. Instead of the usual nshima (ground maize), beans and rape at Christmas there is chicken and rice. In addition every patient is presented with a bag of sugar, a bag of salt and a bar of soap. There are also sweets for everybody brought back by Paul and Nicola (two of the doctors) from a recent trip back to the UK.

After finishing serving the patients we have our own Christmas dinner at the Parkinson’s house. Shelagh and Ian are the hospitals medical director and administrator. They invite all the volunteers left around to enjoy a fantastic dinner with them and their kids.

The week between Christmas and New Year is just like any other week in the year, I guess at home it seems quieter as ‘non essential services’ are usually wound down whereas here there aren’t really any non essential services. On New Years Eve there is a staff party in Malo Gardens one of the pubs in Katete stores. Whilst there isn’t a big turnout, many Zambians don’t take alcohol and for others the 50,000 ticket price (€9) may have been prohibitive and many attend church service, its good fun. There is plenty of food with barbecued goat, steak and chicken. There is beer and wine (not much for me as I have to work the following day). The highlights though are the entertainment and the fireworks.

Frank from the lab has organised the party and has hired ‘CK’ for the entertainment. CK functions as all things, MC, DJ, karaoke singer and comedian. One minute he is spinning some tunes, the next he is doing some political satire of Zambian politicians, then he is organising a press up competition. His best trick is as a ‘singer’. He lets us non Zambians know he is going to do some rock and roll for us as we like that music. He then proceeds to do some karaoke along to a track that goes something like ‘I’m going to give it to you a hundred percent my love’, its more Westlife than rock and roll as he plays the stage even getting the air guitar out. There are further opportunities to make a fool of myself as Frank summons various people onto the stage to display their dancing talents or lack of.

At midnight there are fireworks of the variety where one fears for their safety. Guys light fireworks with ridiculously short fuses on some barrels, they then fly of in random directions some scrape over the roof of the building others just clear the heads of the crowd. At one stage Paul gets struck in the chest by one of these, he lets out a scream but thankfully is not injured beyond the pain.

Christmas and New Year celebrations are lower key than home with more a focus on the religious aspect of Christmas but like home people want to have fun and celebrate together. As the theme of the St Francis staff new years party went ‘Have fun while you live’. Happy new year.