Yesterday was my second Christmas Day spent abroad while working with Hands On and it topped the one in Haiti. Of course, last year in Haiti I spent most of Christmas day in transit trying to escape the country for the beaches of the Dominican Republic, but even that torturous journey on the back of a pickup truck with 20 people had a charming side.

This year’s holiday festivities were certainly a lot more relaxing but also a lot more covert. The community here is pretty sensitive about religion and some people are worried our goal in the community is to convert people to Christianity. In an effort not to stir up trouble, we’ve been banned from uttering the word ‘Christmas’ and have instead chosen to wish friends a Merry Holidaymas, Happy Day or even, my favourite, Happy C-word Day which just makes me laugh.

There’s a great gang of people here at the moment and on Xmas Eve we had a BBQ, sneakily drank beer, and turned the backyard tent into a dance party on complete with strobe lighting provided by our blinking headlamps. Xmas morning was mostly spent nursing a hangover with me surfacing from time to time to fetch the contents of my stocking or collect my secret Santa gift before retreating back to bed but I had no complaints. In the afternoon we all pitched in to create a not-so-traditional meal of pot roast, veggies, spaghetti with mushroom sauce and BBQ chicken topped off nicely with pastries and apple crumble. Xmas evening was spent nursing a food coma while listening to people sing along to the guitar and joining in with some out of tune contributions from time to time.

Volunteering is a great way to spend the holidays and I’m always impressed with how many people rock up for a week over Xmas and New Year’s to help out. In Haiti a big gang of people descended on us in late December and in Indonesia it has been the same but with people generally staying for three or four weeks. We’ve even had a family of four choose to spend their holidays working with us, coming all the way from Alaska. It’s a great atmosphere and I’m still loving it. We’ve had a recent influx of Indonesian volunteers too which is really inspiring as well.

Hands On started on this day five years ago after the Tsunami and, while this is a sad anniversary, it also makes me happy to think about how many people took action to do something positive in the face of devastation. I’m surrounded by some pretty amazing people here and I feel lucky to have gotten the chance to spend another Xmas with Hands On getting dirty and sweaty.

Happy belated C-Word Day everyone!

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