The Giant Christmas Party

I hardly slept the night before the party, I was seriously soooo excited. Its not every day you can party Malawian style with over 500 people!! I also loved the concept. This was our party for them…. They work so hard at caring for their disabled children in tough circumstances, and we believe in rewarding them, and thanking them for their commitment. So I was pretty excited to be a part of it!!!

We spent the first 30 minutes at work scrambling around dividing up the millions of jobs to be done, A few of us excitedly finished off the last of the presents, and made a few more party hats… I’ll be really pleased not to do another one of those for another year… I think I did most of the 400 that were made!!
We knew we had a good couple of hours before the party really got going, as we had 4 vehicles doing 4 trips each to collect some of our party goers!! So that was sure to take some time. I was armed with my camera, and the last of the party hats ready for action!!
We used the open theatre down at the primary school…
The stereo was set up, morgan, victor and patience practiced their DJ voices over the microphone keeping us all amused. People were starting to arrive so we got to work handing out party hats and stapling to fit each child… I think this job took about 2 hours…big case of stapling elbow!! Those of our mobile kids were intent on pulling all the balloons down, just as we positioned them beautifully. The party was opened with a prayer and a few songs which sent me into a state of absolute awe, I didn’t want it to ever end, felt like heaven!

The program is run by the children and their mums, they bring their acts to morgan who then MC’s the event.. we had gorgeous little kids singing songs, poems, heaps of dances and songs by the mums. I wont be forgetting that in a hurry!!

I was suddenly thrown onto the stage and told to juggle like crazy. I was shaky and teary even before starting from the applause I got just for stepping forward. I have never juggled so badly…dropped the balls twice, and could hardly see what I was doing through my watery eyes, so overwhelmed by the most appreciative and excited crowd I’ve juggled for… but of course it didn’t matter.... nothing at all stopped their cheering and singing and applause.

We had just short of 600 people at our party today, and I took 520 photos… thought that was rather impressive!! As you can imagine feeding that number of people certainly isn’t easy!! We served rice, beans, beef, cabbage and nsima. The convoy serving food was amazing, and stored in the biggest containers I’ve ever seen! I spent half the time giving out presents & half the time serving food. I was in charge of the beef bin, using a spoon that was taller than I was to lift the chunks of beef up through the sauce to be scooped onto the awaiting plates. There were more flies than I’ve ever seen in one place. Everything was cooked on fires, in giant pots. It took four people to stir each pot. Two holding either side of the pot, so it didn’t fall of the unstable wood fire it was sitting on, and two to rotate between stirring as the job was such hot and hard work.

I had a few moments of sitting watching the day unfold, and just couldn’t believe the recurring thought…. Can’t believe I’m here….can’t believe I’m a part of this!! It really was amazing to see all of the people there at once, great for the other families as well, to see how many people are in the same situation as them!! Wesley stood near me at one stage and reflected his joy at being able to give these children presents and feed them with such a great meal (which for the record, if served in any Australian restaurant it would be out of business & shut down for poor quality and lack of variety….and taken to court for breaching multiple food handling regulations) But none the less… in Wesleys own words, for some kids out in the rural villages, maybe the best meal they have all year!! There were eye opening moments amidst all of the celebrations that jolted me rather significantly. Namely when I saw mothers emptying half their plates into plastic bags, obviously take away for their hungry at home!! And when we were giving out the remaining donated clothes right at the end. I have never seen near riots as I did at that moment. When have I ever been so hungry or so poor that I have ever needed to do either of those things?! Never ever.

The highlight of our day was once our SOS marimba band cranked up, and there was dancing and singing everywhere, an atmosphere of celebration like not many others I have seen! One of the older boys put on a little dancing display which was AWESOME, but even more fabulous was to watch our Kelvin and Niko copying his every move....!! I didn’t know whether to laugh, cheer or cry, so I just took photos… it was absolutely priceless!!

Amazing amazing day. Lots of fun, lots of laughs. I was in bed by 7:30 to recover!!!