I have never given someone a kitten for Christmas before. I see it in movies all the time. Little kids opening a box under the tree and little fuzzy head popping out. Adorable and heartwarming.
Well, now I’ve done it. Sorta. None of these little Hallmark moments include the behind the scenes of Santa shoving that little ball of fuzz and claws and teeth into the box in the first place. Let me tell you- Santa is glad he’s got thick gloves. Kittens have sharp teeth and sharp claws and are about as slippery as a bar of soap with a mind of its own. I think I have a new scar in the making across the back of my hand.
It was time to relocate one of my little balls of chaos. I had promised Sammy (Samwise) to one of the new volunteers who just moved to my district; let’s call her A. She now lives only two short hours on consecutive taxis from me. Two hours and two taxis still seemed simpler than walking five hours with a cat in a box so off I went. Poor little Sammy had a panic attack the first half an hour or so but the time my taxi arrived she had gone quiet, apparently realizing that her pitiful meowing while compelling was obviously not going to be enough to make me let her out of the box (no cat carriers here, thank you parents for the recycled care package box). We bundled into the packed taxi and she was actually very good. It was actually a relatively painless trip. All the pain had come earlier. We arrived bright and early at the new volunteer’s house. Windows closed? Door locked? Litter box (bin full of dirt) ready? Check, check, check. Okay, let the cat of the box. Merry Christmas!
All my fears about the kitten settling in were unfounded. She seemed quite relieved to suddenly be in a place with three humans to pet her and no annoying brothers to pounce on her at any moment of the day. She’ll be fine.
Another new volunteer, now called R, came that afternoon and so it was just us three for Christmas. R and I arrived at A’s place on the 23rd and stayed until the 26th. Trust me, I’ve learned my lesson about traveling on holidays. I know better and I’ve still gotten stuck in town twice this month. Don’t want to think about what would have happened if I’d actually tried traveling on the 25th. (We actually tries going to somewhere on the 24th to get more cat food and gave up.)
Anyway, the three of us enjoyed this nice summer weather (yes, Christmas in the summer is still weird). We did a fair amount of hiking and had a lot of fun sitting outside doing some watercolor painting with the kids in the village who came by to say hi.
Christmas Eve, A’s village played host to the local soccer tournament. Teams from all the surrounding villages came out to compete, including mine. I’ve never actually seen them play even though my host father is the coach. That has now changed. We arrived at the pitch in time to catch the beginning of the game between my team and A’s village team. We won! 0-1 and a good game. I can tell you that my team is really good at defense. Our goalie looked really bored most of the game since most of the play happened on the other end of the field. One problem was that whenever someone was a little to enthusiastic with their kick and the ball went of the field on one side, it then kept on rolling down the mountain until someone could catch up and run it back up. Sometimes this took several minutes, bringing play to a halt. It’s a little hard to play football without a ball. Everyone was super into the games and the teams turned out in nice uniforms and ready to play. Soccer is a serious past time to Basotho and we really enjoyed being a part of the festivities.
The sun seemed to be holding out just for the tournament. Christmas Day we got a real whopper of a storm. It was cloudy all morning and then came the wind and rain and thunder and lightning. Considering we’re still just coming out a drought, we viewed the storm as gift to the whole country. It also gave us an excuse to sit inside and use our precious battery life to marathon Christmas movies. Worth it! (One of my go to movies is called Christmas in the Clouds and since no one knows it exists, I’m plugging it here.)
While the storm raged outside, R and I crafted while A threw herself into creating Christmas dinner. My dad had sent packages of gravy and stove-top stuffing for thanksgiving that I hadn’t used to I brought them to share. A cooked them up along with some sweet carrots and a ton of mashed potatoes. We had a feast! Good food, good company- it was a great low-key Christmas.
So to making friends and finding family wherever you are. I wish you all a very merry Christmas and hope that your holiday season is filled with love and happiness.
Mountain Tales 