How I almost went hungry on Christmas

I always thought that life in the city was something I was missing out on. When I was younger, there wasn’t that much to see but the city fascinated me anyway. So this Christmas, I decided to bring my family to the city so that we could all enjoy at least 2 days out of the village.But enjoying cannot even begin to describe what we went through. We rented a decent hotel in one of the suburbs and immediately dashed out to get a taste of the city.We moved everywhere; we stopped at every shop and mall...supermarkets even, just looking at what they were selling. We had enough money to have a fine meal on Christmas at one of the good hotels in town and a little extra to keep us going for two days, not forgetting our transport back to the village. I bought a pair of earrings for my wife and a few things for my boys. But as we moved around gawking at everything, the worst happened. Out of fear of leaving money in the hotel room, I decided to take it with me – something I deeply regret. I suppose it was our rural – urban transfer excitement that got us into trouble because we moved around so carelessly. Getting back to the hotel, we were all excited about the few things we had bought. But, a terrifying realism hit us when I discovered that the money I had on me was gone!I don’t know if it fell, simply pulled an ‘Abra Cadabra’ move or someone showed us that the city wasn’t as friendly as we thought it was. Either way, we were stuck, with only the luck that we had already paid for the room so at least we had a roof over our heads.I called my brother and he came to our rescue the next day...and even after what happened, I still wanted and got to have my Christmas in the city. As told to Doreen Umutesi