Yes Virginia...

i heard the bells on Christmas day, their old familiar carols play. and wild and sweet the words repeat, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.


Merry Christmas from Africa, you joyful band of ne’er-do-elves. It rained for three hours yesterday, and before that it was about 95 degrees and dry, and after it was 75 and humid. Not quite Bing Crosby or Parson Brown type weather, but all in all, given my housing, I appreciate the temperatures.

Just finished my two week in-service-training, where I got to see all of my friends from the beginning of my service. Was really phenomenal, in that we all got to spend a lot of time doing a lot of different things, and relaxing in ways that we often aren’t capable of in our villages. On the down side, got back into my village yesterday, and the time I have here, which was beginning to seem so short and action-packed...it’s stretched out again ahead of me. It’s all perspective, but when you have a few pizzas and hear a few carols...ugali and cement walls and mud...they lose their romantic appeal, at least for the first few days. I think after New Years I will fall back into my rhythm. Here’s hoping.


till ringing, singing on its way, the world revolves from night to day. a voice, a chime, a chant sublime, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.


The first Christmas that I shall ever spend without my family. It won’t be the last. God willing, next year’s Christmas will be the last. But who knows? No one. No person knows where he or she will be next Christmas. ‘through the years we all will be together, if the fates allow’. Well this year, they didn’t. But it’s enough for one little man to know that his family and his friends are well, and that they love him, more than he could possibly deserve. In this year, more than any that have come before, I have been loved and surrounded by love, and it has been...a present. What we have is the something special. I don’t mean prosperity and affluence. I mean happiness, and friends, and lives without lies. It has long been my thought that there are happy people and miserable souls in every walk of life, every tax bracket, in first class and in coach. This year, and most years, I am one of them. And it is because you all remain happy.


and in despair i bow my head. there is no peace on earth, i said. for hate is strong and mocks the song, of peace on earth, goodwill to men.


Maisha ni Magumu (life is hard). It would not be a Christmas card from Africa without acknowledging the circumstances of the people with whom I share the yuletide. Do they know it’s Christmastime at all? Yes, yes they do. I have been doing a lot of thinking about the goals of my organization in the last few days, and the goals of so many of the wonderful organizations that do hard, unglamorous work to bring light, even Christmas lights, to a part of the world cautiously emerging from the darkness. But, in my thinking, that attitude is the problem.

I deal with dozens of Tanzanians every day. Some are smarter than me. Some are not. Very, very few were educated as well as I was, and because of that, I possess basic knowledge and processing systems that exceed theirs. I’m not superior to a one of them. Nor are they superior to me. But in the context in which we relate, and in most fundamental relations between developed nations and developing nations, I become the elder statesman. And it makes me feel...awful. I talk to African teachers twice my age, with five times my experience. I need their stories, their advice. But we don’t play on their field. We play on mine. So now it’s me playing the sage, doling out approval or wisdom...and that’s wrong. I become a parent, granting permission or denying cupcakes based on behavior. And that’s not what I am.

This new country of mine has a proud, dignified history, one that goes back far before colonialism, a history that begins with the very first steps of mankind as we know it. But they have drank of the milkshake and seen the glittering streetlights...and that history is being discarded. Ancient women, who should be lording over me and doling out their tales, their advice...they bow to me, and are afraid to speak to me, lest I disapprove. Every other teenager I meet is on his way to America, would much rather talk about Barack Obama than Jakaya Kikwete. And the playing field does not feel level. Because in reality, the playing field is not level. They want to be a developed, Western-style democracy. A TV in every living room and popcorn in every microwave. And those things are great. I know I love them, and I suspect they may as well. It is not for me to judge their desires. To get them, however, they are forced to jump through hoops, learn new rules, be punished when they err like tardy children. There is something fundamentally patronizing about all of it. I get that the fields are not equal. I am here to teach. They are here to learn from me. But maybe it’s one of those fake-it-till-you-make-it deals. Maybe if you expect people to be late to meetings or to skim from budgets, you’ve already lost. Maybe I’m not treating them as equals either. Maybe change begins with the agent of change.

On December 25th, we stop and celebrate for our love for each other. For whatever it may be worth, the people I live with in my village are as worthy of love and admiration as any I have ever met or hope to meet. There are Tanzanian heroes, villains, poets, thieves, carpenters, fathers, and mothers. Their fineries may not be quite as fine, their houses not perhaps so grand. But what we need to truly believe, not just profess but actually believe, is that the quality of a man’s possessions in no way determines or indicates the quality of the man, or woman. On Christmas morning here, we will awake in Africa, hug one another, open our small gifts, slaughter our roosters, and be happy it came. That somehow or other, it came just the same.


then peeled the bells more loud and deep. god is not dead, nor does he sleep. the wrong shall fail, the right prevail. with peace on earth, goodwill to men.


For it is this most beautiful time of year that we alter our hustle and bustle and take time to recognize each other for what we are: beautiful and loving partners in each other’s humanity. No man is an island, and the bell tolls for all of us. There are those of us who manage to survive alone, but in my heart I believe they are the poorer for it. I know the temptation; in fact I feel it often. How easy to care for yourself, to feed your mouth and no other, to win or lose on your lonesome. How hard to offer the little pieces of yourself that love requires, to put your heart on the block, to be broken or sold according to the whims of strangers. But we do it. Why? Because there is something in each of us, some wonderful goodness that it is criminal to conceal. We are not for ourselves. We are for others. To teach, to build, to lead, these are the skills we have, and they are all ways in which we participate in the same rockin’ roller coaster that is this lifetime. In this last year, I have been so damn lucky to live among all of you. I’ve been able to share the lives of my beautiful friends, my unbelievable family, and the love of my life. And they have been able to share my life. Our failures were eased by those who still believed something better lay within us, and our successes were sweeter because they were toasted among friends, high, loud, and repeatedly. On this most unusual of Christmases, I do not feel alone. I am not alone. And that is the purest, most precious present I have ever received. I love you all. Have a very Merry Christmas, and a very Happy New Year.