Something I have come to accept is that life simply is not normal here. Living and working on a YWAM base in a third world country has it's own unique challenges for sure. Our way of life here can be very hard to explain to people. It's not normal to eat, sleep, live, and poop with your coworkers but here it is. It is perfectly acceptable to have an argument over something work related with someone, go out for pizza with them half an hour later as friends, and then come home together as roommates. It's the furthest things from "normal" that I can think of yet to all of us this way of life is normal. Being away from home slowly starts to get harder as the holiday season rushes upon us. I miss the normal Christmas decorations, the normal radio stations that play non-stop Christmas music, the normal family gatherings, the normal church services, etc.. One of the things I start to miss most, outside of family and friends, is good home cooked meals. Don't get me wrong we eat great here on base, but there is just something about cooking a homemade meal and enjoying it with family that I so love, especially around the holidays.
Around this time of year I start to get asked the question, "What do you guys do for holidays?" Since we are an international base and draw people from all over the world we don't put too high of an emphasis on holidays outside of Christmas. We try to do a little something special for each country represented on base as the holiday rolls around but have found that as we grow it can be challenging to go elaborate for every country's special holidays. If students really want to we encourage them to share their traditions and make special things from their country. It is an awesome thing to be such a multicultural base and even more so when we get to share in each other's traditions!
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| This is the "kitchen" we used |
Craving a home cooked meal and some solid American traditions, a few of the staff girls and myself cooked our very first Thanksgiving meal. This was no small feat considering our cooking appliances amounted to nothing more than 2 hot plates, a convection oven, and a microwave in our one bedroom casita. We took this challenge head on and ended up with what was an amazing dinner and some amazing quality time together.
I have come to realize that as much of a traditionalist as I am, especially around the holidays, sometimes it can be good to embrace and start new traditions. I guess some would call this growing up or making the most out of the current moment!
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| Our Thanksgiving meal |
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| Everyone got to post their pics so here is one of my plate! |
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| After the meal, we decorated our tiny Christmas tree! |
