Merry Christmas from Rhumsiki in Cameroon!!!
Today we will celebrate Christmas in Rhumsiki. We have a bit of a sleep in and slowly struggle out of bed at 8 AM. Lars goes to take a picture of the valley with the sunset - that is when he comes upon Paolo sleeping on the terrace. Not sure how he got there, but he did have a great spot (hint - you can guess who had a bit too much to drink last night).
After slowly getting ready (some were slower than others), we settled our bill and headed back to the campsite to join the rest. It was a bit quiet there, so we walked around town. In the village square, we came upon a congregation. The village people were having a service in the square. It would involve preaching in the local language, singing and then, all of a sudden, a bunch of people would get up and start dancing around.
We then head back to the campsite to prepare brunch. We have a wide range of dishes for brunch, but we want to make sure that we do not eat too much - we have a big Christmas dinner planned. They are preparing a whole roast spit pig for us in a big pit that has been dug just for this.
After brunch, we open presents - secret Santa. Everyone has purchased one present for one other person. (Glenn, I will now reveal that I (Lars) was your secret Santa.)
We then took a group picture, prior to relaxing for a while before we started cooking our Christmas dinner. This was a major operation and was a group effort. Different people came up with different dishes and it all came together in the end.
We carved up the pig at 7 PM (the sun had set by then, so the carving was down by torch). We had a feast. For dinner we had the roast spit pig, roast chicken with stuffing, pumpkin, roast potatoes and onions, carrots, potato gratin, soup and gravy. For dessert, we had Christmas rum cake, sugar and cinnamon tortilla and rum chocolate drops. We were stuffed by the end.