'Tis the season

I have to admit, the Holiday Season takes on new meaning here, in a place with so many silent nights, midnights clear and redeeming graces, not to mention little boys drumming.

As is our custom, I have spent a lot of time thinking about all that I have to be grateful for this year. This is a very short list of the many wonderful things that have made me smile on my walks into work in the morning:

- My Mom, for being so supportive, accessible and understanding when I do stupid things
- Former coworkers for urging me to keep a website (nee "blog") while in Tanzania
- Brian H, my dear friend, for buying me this site, which I am having such a wonderful time keeping updated
- Live from Kigoma readers, wherever you are, for your kind and encouraging messages (Martina, are you out there?)
- Monty, the monitor lizard in my ceiling whose presence never ceases to comfort me
- Snakes, for not biting me
- Lake Tanganyika, for being the best place I have found yet to watch the sun set
- The birds whose serenades calm me at the office - sometimes it seems the more tense I get, the louder and more beautiful they sing
- and the many wonderful family members and friends who write to me - both emails and real mail - to make me feel like I'm really not so far away at all.

So, with my stocking hung on my closet with care, I am poised to have a wonderful Holiday in the little (or not so little) town of Dar es Salaam (which rather fortuitously means "city of peace"). And as I watch stars shine above the highest boughs, you can bet I'll be having a very merry little Christmas, in part thanks to you.

And as for my Christmas Wish? Well, I'm already living here.