Sugar, soap and snails

With the arrival of Christmas in Ndanda comes some lovely hospital traditions.  I made a rare visit to church this week in order to see the nursing students re-enact the story of Christmas.  I have no idea what they were saying as the rain was pelting down on the roof so hard it was impossible to hear anything.  However, this didn't actually matter too much as a) I do kind of know the general gist of the story and b) I really only went to see the sheep who stole the show last year and did not disappoint this year either.  The students given the role of sheep make the most of having their identity hidden by a sheet over their head as part of their costume and thus their movement up the aisle is accompanied by some fairly loud and alarming sheep noises, a lot of jostling and at one point what appeared to be a fight between two sheep that had risen up onto their hindquarters and were butting each other.  The shepherds also took their role quite seriously and used their sticks liberally to try to keep their classmates/sheep in order.

Another hospital tradition is the giving of gifts to all patients who will be admitted over Christmas.  Apparently in the past the gifts were pretty extravagant and came in large containers from America and Europe.  Unfortunately the containers have ceased to come and hospital funds are tight so each patient now gets a bag of sugar and a bar of soap.  However, whilst the gifts may be less exciting, the gesture is still lovely.   The wards are all decorated with leaves and bright flowers and the nursing students accompany the doctors and senior nursing staff through each ward singing and beating drums.  It's like nothing you could ever imagine happening in England and whilst the pictures don't really capture the atmosphere they may at least give an idea of the scale of the event.

My ward - all flowery and clean

Singing and dancing in the rain

In less Christmassy-related news, the recent rains have heralded the arrival of the giant snails once more to Ndanda.  Having passed many of these fantastic creatures when running recently, I decided to set off on a walk today together with a camera and the objective of getting the perfect black and white picture of a snail.  This was admittedly quite a specific task and after walking for a long time it started to seem like the snails were deliberately hiding just to spite me.  However, just as I'd given up hope and started to head home there he was, the size of a guinea pig slithering across the road.  I have no doubt that the locals thought I was even more crazy than usual as I crouched down and moved around him trying to work out how best to capture him but it was well worth it in my opinion.  I have included two pictures as one is clearly insufficient to capture his awesomeness. 

I hope anyone reading this has a lovely Christmas.  I will be mostly eating Christmas pudding and being on-call.