CHRISTMAS IN M'KANGA
by
Peter Cloud Panjoyah

        December 25 dawned bright and hot, like nearly every other day here in the outskirts of Addis Ababa, Ethiopia. Chuma raised her aching body up and hoisted her young boy up high on her half-lap, created by one knee level with the ground. Still sleepy, his normally bright eyes were still trying to close, opening in attempts to meet his mother’s concerned and steady gaze.
        “Keba, will you come awake now? It is Christmas day, the day we are all on Earth to have many things bestowed upon us”. She tried to mean the words she said as she brushed a hand across the side of his face, feeling the softness of his skin against her callused palm. It was still relatively cool under the protection of their lean-to at this time of day, the one she shared with her husband and their five year old in the shanty township of M’kanga just outside the city limits of the capital. They had been here only a few months, having had to move out from her mother’s property in the capital when the latest provincial tax crunch forced her mother to subdivide her property and sell off the section with the extra dwelling on it.
        Keba slid down from Chuma’s knee and sat in the dirt, rubbing his eyes and yawning. He inched his way on his bottom toward where his mother sat smiling at him, and, clapping his hands once, began to reach across to touch hands with his mother’s hands in a home-made game of patty cake that the two of them had invented together.
        The tent flap waved suddenly and a young man stepped through. Xogio seemed not much more than a child himself, seemingly younger than his twenty five years. He placed down a woven basket that contained several bulky items wrapped in towels and cloths of various colours. He smiled at his wife and the scene before him before sitting cross legged himself at an angle to their game.
        “I have brought out the givings of the season for us to begin this special day,” he said. “But I will wait until this very important game comes complete.” Winking at Chuma, he set his hands facing out from his body, bobbing his shoulders to the rhythm of the game before him as though about to leap into a game of jump-rope. Soon the three of them were engaged in an intricate dance of hands and yips with nary a skipped clap among them. Keba was surprisingly adept at maintaining his rhythm through the minutes as the game unfolded, sending his hands out to the semi-circle of adult palms before him.
        Finally Xogio stood straight up and stepped across to where the basket lay. “Keba, I have brought things to give you, presents from our Mother Earth that She wants you to have today, which is Christmas day. She gave them to Mama and me to give to you. You may choose whichever colour you would like to start.” He slowly waved one hand over the wrapped packages, displaying the bounty of choice for his little boy.
        Keba fairly bounced in his excitement to begin. He ran his hand lightly over the clothed and hidden items, finally stopping on a bright yellow one that was oval in shape. “This one, Papi,” he said. “This one first.”
        “Go ahead, remove the cloth, little one,” Chuma said.
        In one motion Keba had pulled back the cover to reveal a warm, soft loaf of fresh bread. “This is bread for you, my one,” Xogio said softly. Chuma looked sharply at him and drew her breath in slowly and deeply. Staying her concern with a soft touch on her shoulder, he said, “yes, it is good to just eat as much of as you like, like this.” He demonstrated by tearing a bit off the top and holding it out to Keba, who took it into his mouth, chewing while he looked steadily into his father’s eyes. Keba swallowed and reached to the loaf to take more. Chuma watched him, her eyes suddenly filling with tears as Keba hungrily took one chunk then another steadily, though without rush, to his mouth. Finally, he tore a rather large piece off and held it out to Chuma.
        “Oh, no, this is for you Keba, for you to have.” Keba, however, did not take back his hand, but instead placed the bread on his mother’s knee. With shaking hands she picked it up after another moment or two’s long pause and placed it in her mouth, chewing slowly, savouring. He did the same for his father, who took the bread immediately and ate it with relish.
        “Would you like to try another gift, Keba?” he asked. Shaking his head yes, Keba reached for a checked green and black clothed item slightly larger than the loaf of bread, with protruding corners. As he peeled back the cloth, a covered glass beaker of a yellow liquid was revealed.
        “Pear juice?” said Chuma, eyes wide. “Xogio, how did you get this?”
        “It is straight from the Center Tree,” Xogio replied. “Our Mother has been very generous this season.” Xogio reached behind himself and produced a wooden cup that he handed to Keba. He poured, and Keba drank nearly the entire cup’s worth in a few swallows. He held it out to Xogio, wiping his mouth with his other hand. Xogio refilled his son’s cup and took a small swig from the bottle, handing it to his wife so she could do the same.
        “I think there is one more package for you here, Keba,” Chuma said as she moved her hand through the basket. “Go ahead and open it.” She handed him a small parcel wrapped in a thick, dark red towel. Keba peeled back the layers one corner at a time and found himself holding a long, white, fat plastic object with multi-coloured one-inch strips of various colours all the way around one end. He dangled it from one end between thumb and forefinger as though it were an alien artifact, something from a different planet than the one he occupied.
        “My son, that is a pen with many colours to make art with,” Xogio said to him. “You hold it something like this,” he said, moving closer around to where Keba sat, cradling the large pen between his thumb and forefinger, depressing one of the inch-long coloured strips so that it disappeared into the body of the pen as simultaneously a small tip of inked metal protruded at the opposite end. “And I have something on which to make your art.” He lifted a large stack of white paper out of the middle of the basket and plopped it down in front of Keba. “You can change colours like this,” and demonstrated pressing down a different colour into the pen so that the metal tip swapped with a clicking snap. Xogio drew a few lines and circles on the top page, changed colours and did it again.
        Keba, fascinated, stared at the paper and the pen, but instead of beginning to draw, he stood up and stepped forward, standing an inch or so before his father’s sitting form. Diving forward, he opened his arms and fell into Xogio’s arms, hugging him tightly for a few silent moments. “Oh my boy, my boy,” Xogio repeated softly. Keba lifted off his father and went toward his mother, falling into her soft embrace for moments of similar gratitude.
        As the sun rose higher, warming the tent and the small village around them, Chuma felt as though she could not recall a Christmas as quiet nor as beautiful as this one. As Keba began to put his pen to paper, she leaned into her husband and began to cry softly.