Kids’ Doc in Jos

It’s that special time of year and people have been asking us what Christmas in Nigeria is like. Actually, we can’t answer for all Nigeria or even all of Jos, but here are some observations.

• Weather: dry and dusty. This December is warmer than any we remember, getting up to around 80F (27C) inside the house each afternoon. At this time of year we frequently get long periods of harmattan–cool winds bearing fine dust from the desert, sometimes even looking like a heavy fog. Temperatures up here on the plateau may fall into the 60s F (16-20 C) range during the day and lower at night. We may even turn off our ceiling fan at night!
• Travel. Like Thanksgiving in the US, this is the time for traveling home. Here it’s usually traveling home to the village. Virtually everyone considers somewhere else his or her home, just as Joseph went back to Bethlehem though he lived in Nazareth. Of course, not everyone can go home, but many do their best to do so.
• Decorations: modest by American standards, but then Americans may be just a tad on the excessive side . Christmas trees are not too popular except in more westernized circles, and you cannot buy live trees in this sadly deforested area. Small, artificial trees are seen here and there. Some of the local radio and cell towers are decorated with lights, a nice touch, as are more upscale shops. (The picture above is of our first tree here, in 1991.)
• Christmas parties. I’m sure that there are all varieties of parties and I don’t know most of them. But a frequent form of “party” here, whether for wedding, Christmas, birthday, or baby-naming, is like this. Announce a time, say two o’clock. People will start coming at about two thirty, and by three or three thirty the “program” begins. There are speeches, prayers, special numbers, one or more sermons or meditations, thanksgiving and, at some point, food. The Christmas parties we’ve been to usually include singing a few carols, too, but traditional Euro-american carols are not terribly popular when it comes to singing them.
• The food. Various types of food are served at the parties we’ve been to. Spicy hot jollof rice with a chunk of beef or chicken is probably the most common. At the pediatric ward Christmas party yesterday I had some delicious (and hot!) fish stew over rice. Sweets are much less common than in American parties, where sometimes they are about the only fare.
• Christmas day at church. As far as we can tell, everyone in the Christian community (as opposed to Muslim) goes to church on Christmas day. A bit strangely for us, the churches we have attended do not actually do too much to celebrate, maybe singing a carol or two, hanging some decorations. There may or may not be a Christmas message. But then, there are many, many types of churches and denominations in Nigeria and I’m sure their celebrations are all different.
• Visiting is the main activity of the day after church. People go from house to house greeting each other, sitting for a while, and eating Christmas food: rice, beef stew, rice and beans, bean cakes, Coke, just about anything that is a little special. Families also take homemade food to each other’s homes in a gesture of friendship.
• The day after Christmas is Boxing Day, from British tradition. It is a national holiday and the visiting and celebration continues. Among more western-exposed groups gift exchange is common, but I don’t think it’s at all universal. [Nigerian readers, help me out here!]. Children go from house to house asking “Where’s my Christmas” which we learned means basically “Trick-or-Treat”. A sweet, a “mineral” (soft drink), a snack, or a some small amount of money will meet their expectations.

Overall, Christmas here is very moderate, with neither the drama and emotion nor the frantic craziness and commercialism of Christmas in the US. We missed “a real Christmas” at first, but we’ve gotten used to the way it’s celebrated here and appreciate the good side. When we’re back in the US at Christmas, as we were in 2003, we loved that too.

OK, I’ve gone way out on a limb here and blathered beyond my knowledge about Nigerian culture. I hope that some of you Nigerians of the diaspora will add some comments and corrections and tell us what you remember of Christmas. How was it celebrated in your home and community? What did you like, what do you miss, what don’t you miss? It would be great to hear from you all!

Merry Christmas to you all, and please steal a few minutes of quiet at some time to meditate on what it really means.

This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 21st, 2005 at 11:52 pm and is filed under Mike's jottings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.