We wish you a deshi Christmas (25/12/08)

Being swept up in the newness of everything, I hardly noticed that Christmas was just around the corner until I was on the night bus (huge error, by the way) heading for Dhaka in order to collect my arriving family from the airport.

Of course, there is no Christmas tat to contend with here, no rubbish Christmas music, no stress and no consumerist convulsions. For these things I am generally hugely grateful. But, much as I’m loathe to admit it, these things do hammer home a sense of Christmassy-ness that I really do love, even if they sometimes hammer it a little too hard (almost every year, hearing The Pogues one too many times makes me want to commit a violent crime). Needless to say, Christmas in Dhaka was going to take some work if it was to feel even vaguely like Christmas…

The Whitaker-Wylies arrived in Dhaka on 22nd December: cue an extremely happy reunion amidst a sea of returning hajjis. It was a little odd to have the fam in Bangladesh, in the way you often feel disorientated when two previously separated worlds collide, but it was also absolutely fantastic to see my parents and sister after such a long time (almost three months – probably the longest I’ve so far gone without seeing my parental units).

Interestingly, I think my dad had come to Bangladesh partly in order to escape Christmas (remember, this is the man who is primarily responsible for the fact that for the last few years, the Whitaker-Wylie Christmas dinner has been something like kebabs cooked on the barbecue outside). As a result, he was not particularly interested in the plans being cooked up in the VSO volunteer community to bring Christmas to Lalmatia.

Luckily this did nothing to limit our enthusiasm. Megan was a veritable powerhouse when it came to planning Christmas (I was busy running tours of Dhaka’s historical sights for the traveling bideshi show, aka, my family), and for this I will be eternally grateful.

Preparations for the Christmas period progressed swimmingly (again, I can’t claim any credit here. Thanks are due to Megan, Ollie, Laura and others). Ollie had gone all out on the alcohol-buying front, and we had a true cavern of delights, consisting of Heineken, Bangladeshi vodka, several litres of Bangla pani (literally meaning ‘Bangla water’, but actually referring to the potent rice wine brewed by indigenous peoples, especially in the Chittagong Hill Tracts, and semi-legally transported by VSO volunteers stationed in the CHT in 7-Up bottles), and – fanfare please – WHITE WINE. Yes, Scal had managed to procure a few sweet bottles of vin blanc, of vino bianco.

Seriously, it’s things like this that tempt me to believe that there is, in fact, a god.

Anyway. For Christmas Eve, we had a Christmas Decorations Party. Keith brought a miniature tree his aunt had sent him from the States. Megan had bought felt tips, blue tack and paper, and everyone got massively excited about making snow flakes and paper chains, which were then elaborately hung around the flat. Someone even bought snow in can, which brought a magical few seconds as we sprayed it around the tree, only to discover that the ‘snow’ was lilac, had the consistency of shaving foam, and evaporated in a matter of minutes. Megan – goddess of organization and brilliant Christmas ideas – had decided to make something that she named ‘Potent Pagla Pani Punch’ (forgive me if I haven’t got the name exactly right, Megbo!). This consisted of Bangla pani (natch), mango juice, 7-Up, apples, oranges and star fruit. It obviously went down a storm…

I thought things couldn’t get any better after that party. But how wrong I was!

On Christmas Day, the festivities kicked off with a Christmas brunch. No expense was spared. Scrambled eggs, fried tomatoes, toast, honey, peanut butter, jam, pancakes, cheese (yes, for the love of God, CHEESE!) were devoured alongside obligatory cans of Heineken and glasses of white wine. None of this might sound particularly exciting to anyone in the UK, but when you have been denied such delights for a few months, suddenly, even bland cheese and vinegary white wine become like ambrosia.

In the evening, the VSO induction flat hosted its second party in two days (god bless VSOB for finding a flat in a building where no-one complains about the noise). Apparently, in the last few years, Christmas amongst volunteers has been fairly fragmented, with the Kenyans, Ugandans, British, Filipinas etc celebrating separately. But not this year, oh no! Everyone came over bearing a dish, and we got down to some serious eating, drinking and dancing. To cap it all off, Scal made his debut as Santa, in a costume constructed from red cotton and cotton wool, dishing out Christmas beers to all and sundry. Oh the japes!

That I spent Christmas 2008 in Dhaka, where it was 20 degrees outside, with so many wonderful new friends and my family around me, eating food from eight different countries and dancing the night away to lilting, eternally cheerful Kenyan and Ugandan pop music, have really made me reconsider my take on Christmas. I don't even like turkey.