Merry Christmas in Africa?

A year full of surprises comes to an end and I would like to take the opportunity to send all of you special season greetings, especially to Linkedin for being able to connect me in an unconventional fresh way to business people from all over the world, help create more visibility for french speaking Africa: the relations between Europe and Germany in particular with french speaking Africa.

In Germany we mostly celebrate from 24th December. Therefor Germany becomes no mans land with all shops and everything shut down. Most Germans like to use this time of the year to reflect and bond with their family over very well planed meals and an orchestrated planing of who you see , a time planer about when to get whom a present.

Even in times of celebrations we Germans like to plan through and stay in contral of fun. With Covid reducing the contacts Germans resort to using courier services to get their cards and parcels out. The shops only reopen on 27 December and therefor we usually buy as much food that we could survive several months without shopping.

In french speaking countries and particularly Cameroon: Christmas is a time of celebrations. People cook so much they could survive for months and most homes have an impressive buffet to choose from mountains of food starting from 24th december. But then again we are in the sweetspot of agriculture with the sea, mountains to grow coffee, gardens offering an abundance of fruits and vegetables. No matter the economic status of the families they prepare mountains of food to accomodate armees of ever incoming visitors that come by to wish you Merry Christmas. Presents are ususally cash. As most people are very religious the churches burst with happy visitors. The music is blasting from household to household in some form of competion which adds to a rather festive and posivtive atmosphere.People are dressed to the ninth and visit one another with no end of visiting and no formal invitation.

Germany and french speaking Africa could not any different from one another in their approach to Christmas but guess what it is ok that way. Its south vs north. Both have their good ways and I appreciate both Christmases and both foods. I hope that in the future we will celebrate our differences, appreciate the different approaches, get to know more of one another, live it and love it.

Therefor; No matter if you are nibbling on Knoedel, or Yam , indulging in Taro or Weinkraut, sipping on a cool Kadji Bear or a fresh Pilsner, eating Fonio or eating poisson braise or Gans, Kartoffelsalat or Ndole, I wish you a wonderful time and stay healthy.