Recollections of Christmases past: why I am sharing beef with a neighbour

The end of year is upon us, with the festive season in full swing. A lot of people all over the world are in holiday mood, as Christmas nears. In majority Christian countries, individuals and families are draining their savings, even getting in debt, so as to have themselves a memorable Christmas day. And why not, life is for living, and what better occasion is there for that than on Christmas? Well, I am not talking about Rwanda exactly, because Christmas celebrations around here, while important, tend to be a muted affair with very little noise – which was a bit of a culture shock at first for someone like me that was born and grew up in Uganda where people celebrate the occasion with complete gusto (no other way to define it). (I discovered that Rwandans, though a good majority will go to church on that day, will party much harder on New Year). My first conscious recollection of Christmas, in the bottom low-income neighborhood I came up in, was how all of a sudden there would be pungent aromas of beef on skewers roasting on charcoal stoves all along the doorways of the low-rental “mizigo” houses that were the most common residence. Men would turn up from work carrying rare delicacies, like chicken, and the ladies and daughters would be extra-busy plucking feathers, boiling water to immerse the fowl’s meat in, others sending us little boys to run to the nearest corner shop to buy cooking oil (which the shop keeper measured by the ladle). The atmosphere would be extra cheerful. For us children there was a promise of full bellies, probably the first day of the year this uncommon phenomenon of a full tummy occurred – at least for us and most of our immediate neighbors. Here was the thing about Christmas in Uganda, it was a day for sharing, something that Ugandan culture is richly imbued with. But this is something that can be said about most African cultures anyway. I think a case can be made that, in terms of practicing the teachings of Christ, in the purest terms, Africans are second to none. Anyway, those in our neighborhood with very little would still be quite certain that on the day of sekukulu, they would gorge themselves to the brim with matooke, enyama, enkoko, and soda, courtesy of more well-off neighbours who uncomplainingly and happily emptied their cupboards. Let me tell you, on that day even the most habitually lazy individual woke up at the first chirping of birds in the trees, ready to help out with chores to speed up preparation of the food. And so, for me and, I suspect, multitudes of others that came up in the kind of life I did, the earliest memories one associates with Christmas is of plentiful feasts, interspersed with loud music (those were the times when the “rich” would bring out their boomboxes – cassette record players – out, by the veranda, to play the latest songs of kadongo kamu). Christmas was bliss! The feasting and drinking of course only began after everyone that was a Christian had gone to church, and come back. That was a very special occasion, when everyone put on their Sunday best, but it wasn’t any Sunday best. This was THE Christmas attire, meaning new clothes: a new suuti for the husband; a new gomesi for the wife (and woe betide the fellow that couldn’t afford a new garment for his missus. Wolololo! There would be a real battle in that household, a world war, and not necessarily on Christmas itself. It would be sooner, the moment mukyaala realized her worthless musajja wasn’t delivering a colorful, pointy-shouldered busuti like Mrs. So and So next door was donning). As for the guys, most of them when the feasting was over would wander off, to the nearest drinking joint, “to be in the company of fellow men.” There, they would spend the entire evening, and late into the night. Voices that started out in calm, conversational tones gradually became louder, rowdier, and merrier. Men got plastered, zonked, utterly wasted. I swear I once saw a guy talking to a tree. Another uncommon sight was a man crawling on all fours, talking completely incoherent things. Some would be singing political songs from the 1960s. Ah, Christmas. How we loved you! And now as I write this today, I think that in memory of those earliest festive seasons I will buy one kilogram of beef, to share it with a more needy neighbor. Also, wishing you all a Merry Christmas and a very happy holiday season.

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Recollections of Christmases past: why I am sharing beef with a neighbour