Going to the bathroom first thing in the morning I looked for the soap. It had been there, right in that glass dish, when I went to bed last night but now it’s missing. How odd. A quick hunt reveals the small round tablet of hotel soap behind  the sink, except it isn't round anymore as one side has clearly been nibbled away.

One of the resort staff tells us this was probably a Zanzibar Bushbaby – a prolific small primate in this coastal forest. And when you have a bathroom open to the forest any Bushbaby with a predilection for eating soap is on to a winner. In fact my bar of soap has been replaced each day and each night it moves to behind the sink and gains tooth marks. This resort must get through a lot of soap.

We’re spending a week in a small hideaway on the Zanzibar coast, built into a lush dense coastal forest and overlooking a white coral sand beach, for a bit of well-deserved (we think) R & R before the SIM Ethiopia five-day biennial conference. After that we do a quick trip to the UK just after New Year for a week to see the family. We’ve never holidayed in a tropical climate at Christmas before and it’s quite strange being here on the longest day of the year (22nd December). It’s also quite odd getting up on Christmas Eve in warm sunshine and watching monkeys leaping through the treetops hunting for leaves. Chris is loving the hot humid climate; I can bear it because I have the option of jumping into cold water any time I like. And I do – a lot.

Christingle

Symbolism is a very powerful thing in Ethiopian culture, so a Christingle came in handy for Chris to share the truth of Christmas with her Ytesfa Birhan girls. (A Christingle (it means “Christ-light” probably) is an orange (representing the world) with a candle in the top (Christ the Light of the World) and wrapped in a red ribbon (Christ’s blood shed for the world). Four cocktail sticks with sweets or dried fruit on represent the four seasons and God’s bounty to the world. The story behind the Christingle can be found here.) Chris learned a lot of Amharic to help the girls make their own Christingle and to help explain the symbolism to them. Let me wish you all a very happy Christmas and New Year, and I will leave you with this picture of three of the girls with the Christingles each of them made in front of them. I hope you will reflect on this picture for a few minutes, as it aptly summarises fundamentally why we are here.