This article is from page 28 of the 2007-12-04 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 28 JPG
“HAMNA chakula nyumbani” — “There is no food at home”. When we answered the knock on the door last Sunday, Anna’s stark, simple message, her frail body and sad eyes told all. We know this family of seven. What she said was literally true. They would not eat that day if we didn’t help.
It’s almost Christmas but when you’re poor, Christmas means noth- ing. Here in Pemba, the vast majority of people are poor and it 1s a struggle for them just to survive. There is no big Christmas spending spree.
Yesterday in the fish market we saw an old man who had only 200Tsh (12c), buying the entrails of a fish for his dinner. It was all he could afford. Later at the shop a young woman on
her way to the hospital with her sick baby was buying a single dispos- able nappy.
What about Santa? Last week Laila, a tu- tor in the college asked me, “Who its this Father Christmas? I read about him in a book.” Christ- mas is a time for chil- dren’s toys and presents but we have never seen a doll and pram in Wete.
Baby brothers and sisters are their ‘dolls’. If kids have a ball it 1s usually made from plastic bags tied up in string and toy cars are manufactured from plastic containers with ‘wheels’ cut from old flipflops.
As I write, I am being serenaded by 10-year-old Makame (pictured),
sitting on the veranda playing his ‘guitar’ made out of a_ bent stick, a piece of fishing line and a margarine tin. We have yet to see a child with a mobile phone or an MP3 play- er. A ‘present’ for them would be a biro, a few marbles or a hair bau- ble which could double as a bracelet.
Leisure time here is different too. The ‘office night out’ is a group of men sitting on the footpath outside the mosque at dusk, drinking spiced tea from a communal kettle and play- ing draughts with bottle tops on an improvised board.
Meanwhile, groups of chatting women move along the street buying
cheap fried cassava or sweet buns from their neighbours’ food stalls.
In the west we have lost the simplic- ity of Christmas and the Christmas story. But for us this year, Christmas will be a low-key affair.
Despite missing family and friends it will be refreshing to celebrate the Holy Season without the trimmings, walking among children who have not yet heard of Father Christmas.