#47 – Dec 16th 2007

I’m dreaming of a 30 degree Christmas…

Palm trees. Sweat. The beach, sand, surf. Not things generally associated with Christmas. No evergreens, no scarves and mittens, certainly no snow. The temperature hasn’t dipped below 30 degrees in months. It’s too hot for jeans; I walk around in sandals and a tank-top, my skin alternating between golden brown and ruby red. Tropical flowers abound; mosquitoes feast on any ounce of my flesh not covered with 30% D.E.E.T.; I haven’t seen my breath in cold morning air in eight months.

It would be inaccurate to state that a Ugandan Christmas is incomparable to a Canadian one. More precisely a poor Ugandan Christmas is completely incomparable. One of my roommates, Angela, has a circle of upper-class Ugandan acquaintances with whom she’s been spending the holiday and has noted marked similarities: decorated stores in the “rich” part of Kampala, snappy African-ized Christmas carols blasting from said stores, gift-buying frenzies, the occasional in-store artificial tree. I, however, have experienced none of this. Save for the occasional Boney-M tune crackling off a battery-powered radio or a faded Merry Christmas banner dangling from a shop window, Christmas is nowhere to be found. There is no holiday commercialization in the ghettos of Uganda. No shopping, no gift-buying, no Christmas parties, no Santa Claus. Sleighs, reindeer, elves? How ‘bout jobless parents, three less relatives than the previous year, and children dreaming of a glass of milk on Christmas morning? I suppose a Ugandan Christmas more closely resembles the holiday’s humble beginnings; a crumbling backyard shack, a poor baby hungry, dirty; people cast out to fend for themselves in the worst possible of moments.

I decided to take a new approach to the holiday; don’t celebrate it. Rather than try to create some semblance of a pseudo festive feeling, I poured my money (and the generous donations of others) into making the day as fun (and un-Christmassy) for the African Heart boys as I possibly could. My family back in Canada puts on a pretty good show for the holiday, complete with turkey, plush tree, Christmas playlist on repeat, family gatherings, etc., and in order to avoid any nostalgic feelings I steered clear of said things like the plague. I refused to download O Holy Night (my favorite carol), I refrained from buying a cute artificial tree from the men that approached me with one in restaurants (I kid not), I bought not a single gift, no wrapping paper, no tinsel, no cards. It was going along quite splendidly until two packages arrived from my parents complete with Santa Hats, gift wrap, angel ornaments and my favorite stocking stuffers. St.Nick reared his head momentarily as I tore open the package with kidish anticipation and eagerness. I admit I sat for several seconds, head in hands, remembering each treasured Christmas moment, the taste of eggnog, the sweet smell of pine and freshly peeled mandarin oranges, new socks, prayers for snow.

But my thoughts turned. To my boys, to their lack of anything joyous to celebrate. The 25^th of December is memorable to them not because it is the day they found that shiny red BMX in the backyard. Not because they received that gift on pg.96 of the Christmas Wish Book they’d placed strategically on their parents bed months earlier. Not because they went to Mexico or Hawaii, or got to snowboard for two weeks straight. Its memorable because it’s the day they bring out the one pair of clothes they’ve been saving all year; clothes no one has seen yet. Everyone waits anxiously to see their peers’ new threads. Ewes and awes abound. It is memorable because, for many, it is the one day of the year…one day…they get to eat meat, drink milk, and feel satisfied when the food is over. Memorable because, if they are so very lucky, they might get to go to the beach.

Many Ugandans go to their villages for the week surrounding Christmas. Sandra and I visited hers for a few days, returning on Christmas Eve. In the village there is food a plenty, relatives measurable in the thousands, and hospitality abounding. The nine hour bus ride was quickly forgotten as we were whisked from house to house, piled plate of food to piled plate of food, one intriguing conversation to the next. But again, this tradition is for those with money. Sandra hadn’t visited her village since she was in grade 7, she’s now in University. I picked up the transport costs and was infected with her excitement as we approached the area and she could barely sit on her seat, so excited was she to see her relatives, her old haunts.

My boys will not being seeing their relatives. Out of the 64 boys, two were able to find the money to go see their extended families. The rest remained in Kampala, the city of dust and poverty. I took Robert and Sammy to Watoto’s Christmas Cantata, a production by the charity group that wowed me like no other Christmas concert world over ever has. It was colourful and lively and brilliantly presented. The singers brought goosebumps to my flesh, the dancers surpassed any I’ve seen, and the smiles never left my boys’ faces. For a brief moment, as the lights turned off and drums beat and the nativity scene came to life, I experienced a surreal merger of the Canadian and Ugandan Christmas experience; the baby’s birth as it really would have been, in the heat and the dust and the strain, together with the feeling of family and warmth and love I’ve been gifted with each holiday season in Canada.

I realized then and there, as I watched Sammy and Robert’s faces, that this was their first moment of absolute happiness over the holidays. Their bellies were full, their bodies rocking to the beat of the music, their eyes wide drinking in the production, anxiety building in their throats for a night of Christmas movies and treats. It’s easy to say they are happy; they aren’t materialistic like Canadian kids, they won’t be let down when they don’t get the newest X-Box or the most kickin’ snowboard. It’s easy to say they will be satisfied with very little. Although all that is true, the grit and grime of it is that they aren’t stupid. They know what they lack. They miss family even if they’ve never experienced it. They’ve tasted love, had glimpses of it and crave it now most of all. They may not write lists for new shoes, new jackets, jewelry and electronic gadgets, but there isn’t a single one of them that wouldn’t cry alligator tears if he received a new sweatshirt (knitted or otherwise), a soccerball, an Akon CD.

We had porridge with milk and sugar for breakfast Christmas morning. Lunch was a feast of fried cabbage, sweet greens (like spinach), matoke, rice, chicken and beef, and groundnut sauce, washed down with soda. 64 kids running wild around the boys’ home, bellies round and bloated, literally bulging with the consumed food like I’d never seen before. No less than three of the boys approached to tell me that was the first meat they’d tasted since last Christmas. I smiled and rubbed their heads and enveloped them in huge hugs, standing in utter blankness as they trotted away. Blankness because how do you react to that? I would write more about how I felt but there simply isn’t anything to say.

We ended the day at the beach. All the boys crammed in a huge bus. A mad sprint to the water, clothes stripped off halfway down the sandy path, some buck naked, some in boxers, surprisingly none wearing the latest billabong shorts, ha. Some swam, most hovered safely in the non-drowning zone, afraid to venture too far into the murky waves of Lake Victoria, unable to float or tread any amount of water. I gave ad-hoc lessons to all within shouting distance. Night-time fell, mosquitoes closed in, towels were shared, Akon sing-a-longs died down half way home. One child’s head in my lap, a hand sprawled through my hair, a lone leg crossed against my ankle. Contented silence.

As Christmas should be. Happiness, satisfaction, contentment. We all get there in different ways. No New Years Resolution but that this can be experienced more than one day a year over on this side of the globe.

~Nicole