I'll be Home for Christmas

Hola a todos! Not too much to report from Bluefields. This week was pretty hectic since I was running a summer camp from Wednesday – Friday of this week. I was nervous as to how it t would go, but thanks to my other site volunteers, it was largely a success. I learned a lot and hopefully next year it will go even smoother. Now I’m just getting ready to spend the holidays with Geri (another Peace Corps volunteer) in Pearl Lagoon, a Creole community on the coast.

It definitely is an unusual feeling to not be spending Christmas in the states with my family. This has always been a special time for us, and since I’ve been born, we’ve always been able to spend it together. As I was shopping this morning, I passed by a store playing “I’ll Be Home for Christmas” (the reggae version of course, because this is Bluefields) and started to tear up. To hold in, I proceeded to scrunch up my face so that the whole walk home it looked like I was trying to poo. Merry Christmas Bluefields.

Listening to this song, however awful its timing was, made me think about the story of the first Christmas. Regardless of what you believe of this story, there is no doubting the enormous sway that it holds in the imaginings of all who celebrate this holiday. The constant messages of “Peace on Earth” and “Love your fellow man” both have strong connections to the birth of Jesus. According to Christian tradition, it was his love for  man which allowed him to be born in the most humble of settings: a smelly and less-than-sanitary animal barn. This theme of love is most, taken from the original Christmas story, is the focus of every Christmas.

For me with my scrunched up got-to-poo face, this year was different. Instead of focusing on this particular theme, I was thinking instead of Mary and Joseph. Like me, Mary and Joseph weren’t able to be with their own families on this first Christmas. Instead, thanks to Caesar Augustus, they were required to travel to Bethlehem while May was nine months pregnant This means that Mary was forced to give birth 1) without the support of her family 2) without comfort of being in her own home or even an inn and 3) after having ridden a long way on a donkey (which cannot be comfortable for a pregnant woman). Any woman will tell you that these are not the most ideal conditions for giving birth, but this is what Mary did. And through this hardship, beauty was brought into the world. 

Now, to clare-ify (I’m sorry, I love doing that), I’m not trying to compare myself to Mary, or claim that what I’m doing is going to produce anything beautiful. It’s simply that experience of not being home for Christmas, has allowed me to look at this story from a different perspective and gain a deeper appreciation of the sacrifice involved. This Christmas, my greatest gift has been to realize that it these little sacrifices (or things I have been forced to give up) which enrich my experience here, reminding me to step outside of myself and my own needs. For during what time is of year is it better to focus on others than Christmas? Merry Christmas everyone J