Jingle Bells!

I only just began writing Christmas cards this week. Not because I am lazy, although I am, but because it didn't really occur to me that Christmas was coming. Even though these cards have been posted, I wouldn't recommend that anyone hold their breath. The way things are going; the cards won't reach anyone until February. The weird thing is, mail from your end seems to be reaching me at the normal rate. Perhaps I need to bribe someone at the post office. As it is, I think I am annoying them. We had a long "discussion" today about where on earth Colombia is. I think we established that it was not in Europe, although I don't think we got much further than that. To my friends in Colombia: as of today, there is a Christmas card floating around the world somewhere with probably inadequate postage and your name on it.

As I was huddled in my blankets in the frosty ten-degree night, writing these Christmas cards in the last moments before the generator went off for the night, I heard singing from outside. A group of students from one of the other schools in camp were outside the dorm, holding candles and guitars and singing a mix of Karen and English Christmas carols. They have beautiful voices and sing lovely harmonies. The insects were calling softly from the banana trees and I stood with a few of the girls from the dorm, hugging each other for warmth, smiling at the candlelight and looking up at the stars.

The next day, our students sprang into action. Last year, they had gone caroling in the camp for three nights, six hours each night and raised the equivalent of about $100. That's a serious wad of cash around here. Although they loved the singing and found it very lovely, they were suddenly worried that they would be cut out of the game. An emergency meeting was called. The singing practice begun. I spent the next two evenings correcting papers in the classroom at night, while the students tried to figure out the words and tune to such classics as "Jingle Bells," "Silver Bells," and, of all things, "Feliz Navidad." They sound very lovely so it hardly seems fair to bother them about pronounciation, the correct tune or any such trifles. There were lots of laughs though, particularly as several students routinely mix up Jingle Bells and Silver Bells and sing the words from on to the tune of the other. I will miss the actual caroling, which is not too upsetting. Six hours of singing is a little much. But combined with this, there are six hours of walking in the dark and six hours of scaling and descending steep, muscle breaking hills. Thankfully, I am safely back in Mae Sot for the evenings in question. Otherwise, there could be no hope for me.

Meanwhile, we are all singing "Jingle Bells" under our breath, almost all the time. There's nothing that says it's the holiday season more than the endless repetition of the same old songs.

Suddenly it feels like Christmas.