Christmas Photos (and New Year)

In Eritrea, there are two " Christmas' ": Christmas is celebrated on 25th December in the Catholic Church, but the main Eritrean Christmas (Orthodox Chucrh) is celebrated on January 7th - Christmas according to the Geez calendar! It is pretty quiet here before Christmas - unlike the UK - and to be honest, it's not exactly riotous on 7th. No matter - we made a go of it. I got together with most of my VSO colleagues in Asmara to celebrate. We started on Christmas Eve with an office party and then on Christmas Day (the real one on 25th. December) we went for a wonderful 7-course lunch at a posh Italian restaurant. Then for New Year we all headed off to Massawa - a beach resort on the Red Sea coast. Rachel came out to stay after Christmas and was here for New year. We slept out under the stars on the beach at Massawa. We got back to Segeneiti in time for the baptism of my neighbour's baby; baptisms are a big deal in the Orthodox Church and it seemed like half the town was there to greet me when we arrived home to our compound.
We celebrated Eritrean Christmas on 7th. with huge Injera lunches - three of them. My friend and fellow VSO colleague, Sami, slaughtered a chicken - this was a little disturbing but at least we knew the meat was fresh!

Louam and Embaba decorate my Christmas tree. Christmas at the VSO Project Office. We had a challenge to design and make the best hat - and I won it!

The last sundown in 2008; the first sunrise of 2009. And Rachel and me on the beach!