Merry Christmas

And to my mother, Happy Birthday.

They roar past like ghosts on their tired, choking motorcycles. Harmattan sands cake their skin and clothes. Many peer past clouded goggles protecting their eyes from the intrusive grit. These gray specters fly down terre rouge on their way from Nigeria near the end of every December. It's the rural exodus.

Nigeria's farming and lumber industries pay more, drawing economic migration from all over the country. At Christmastime, however, the migrants come home. The small dirt paths leading to villages all over Benin are crowded with moto-caravans, racing by in groups of eight or nine. Big, eighteen-wheel trucks, carry loads men in their beds. Men who cheer as you wave to them. Men on their way home. They're always blanketed in gray, a mix of ash from the fields being burned and the choking dust clouds of Harmattan.

In Manigri, you can tell when someone has finally come home. In my house I can hear cheers erupting from all over Ikanyi, as entire concessions pour out of their homes to greet their returned brothers. It's difficult to describe. For these men, their entire lives were spent in these concessions, surrounded by multiple inter-married and related families. And then they had to leave. Leave their mothers, fathers, wives, children, to seek work and better wages in a different country with a new language. They bring back gifts, the back of their motos are weighed down with cement sacks; pockets heavy with money. But the real gift, of course, is themselves. And it's not just the concession that celebrates- the surrounding concessions come out. Old mamas, babies, papas, brothers, cousins, sisters rush out of their homes to see the stranger who has returned. It's pandemonium and joy and possibly the most beautiful thing I've ever seen.

They don't really come home for Christmas, however, as you may think. Christmas is largely seen as a holiday for children. Papa Noel is just some cartoon character that gives presents to little kids. Of course, most kids don't get Christmas presents as families save their kabri for the New Year celebration, a feast that lasts up to three days. That is the real fête. While I never felt as though we celebrated a religious Christmas in my family, there remains a nostalgia for snow, lighted trees, and the general spirit of love, generosity and kindness encouraged through the season. This is the kind of nostalgia that makes me choke up when teaching my students, "We Wish You a Merry Christmas" in class. (I'll chalk this emotionalism up to not having had to endure christmas music, obnoxious advertising or shopping mall santas.)

The new pastor and his wife (of the church directly behind my house) are possibly the sweetest couple I've ever met. Their speech is soft and they shake hands earnestly. I like visiting them to ask them about their chickens, the service, the choir, etc. Last time I was sitting in their house, I glanced into one of their side rooms to see a stack of boxes. The side facing me read, "Samaritan's Purse". Where have I seen that before? I got up from my vastly uncomfortable seat to examine the cardboard boxes. "Operation Christmas Child." No. No way.

I was just talking about them last year in a scattered blog post. My sisters and I would get a slip of paper with the information: boy, age 13. or girl, age 3 typed out on it. We'd fill a shoebox with hard candy, small toys and picture books. It was, looking back, one of the better parts of Christmas. And as I wrote last time, as a kid I knew someone would put in a little book about Jesus and Christianity in attempts to proselytize, but that didn't bother me. The generosity and uncommon kindness to strangers was more appealing to me than any religious basis for the organization.

And then, there they were. Shoeboxes little girls and boys filled with hope for a merry christmas to kids they could never hope to meet. Shoeboxes filled with toys that will undoubtedly bring so much joy, excitement (and confusion) to the homes of children who have only tin cans and matchbooks to play with. I remember vividly helping my mom stuff socks and a toothbrush into a shoebox and wrapping it, wondering about the lives of those children abroad in the Philippines or yes, Africa. And now , staring there I was, staring at the same boxes that I had once wrapped. And I know these kids now. And those kids. It was like straddling the continental divide. It was miraculous to me that in all of the churches in Benin, this small mud-brick congregation was a recipient of Samaritan's Purse, and that I had the opportunity to be on the receiving end of someone else's generosity and charity. Someone else's christmas wish, if you will.

I know there are a lot of people out there who don't celebrate or even particularly like Christmas. I used to be one of them. In the United States it's really easy to see the seedy underbelly of this vastly commercial holiday. However, once removed from the status quo of gift-wrapping, terrible television commercials and nerve-wracking economic analysis, I find myself discovering what the holiday means to me. It's a shoebox, wrapped by small hands in the United States and opened in the bush of Africa.

With that I'd just like to say, Happy Holidays. I miss you all.