January 14, 2009

A Christmas Story: Part I

“Justine,” I announced a week before Christmas, “I have a great idea!”

Justine put down her sewing and looked at me expectantly, albeit with an obviously wary suspension of judgment. She’d heard me say these words before, always pronounced with a dramatic flourish of arms and a deeply felt conviction in the sheer genius of the my plans.

“Can’t the little kids put on a Christmas play when they have their recital at the church on Christmas Eve?”

Justine’s face lit up, while in her eyes monetarily flickered relief that the brilliant idea did not, as it had on past occasions, involve a proposition to dig a pool in my yard (she convinced me to abandon this idea after pointing out that the sun would heat it to uncomfortable and even unbearable temperatures) or to train her goats to pull a cart (it’s hard to explain this idea when only one of us has watched Heidi.)

“Oui!” she said, drawing the word out in a low whistling tone, which is her manner of acknowledging something she really likes. She enthusiastically applauded as I hastily acted out what every American child probably knows by heart: the Nativity play. “They are practicing this afternoon in the church courtyard. Go tell Theo what you want to do and you two can see if it can be done.”

I found the courtyard full of noise and movement, the drums that I enjoy so much urging the dancers’ bodies on and on, movements that sometimes seems to use muscles that I didn’t even know were so minutely controllable. The youth of the church were gathered here to practice – the 6 year olds on up through the 19 year olds, along with the obligatory gaggle of infant siblings given over to their sister’s car this afternoon, and neighborhood little ones who had simply shown up just to watch. When there is no TV, anything is a break from the mundane. The kids were practicing their “ballet”, the French word they use to describe their traditional dances performed at church fetes. They were all wearing whatever they had dressed themselves in this morning, but I knew that the night of the performance, the boys would dance shirtless with pagnes wrapped around their waists, and the girls would dance in a single pagne with a cord holding it over their breasts and another one wrapped like a sash around their waists.

Those who noticed my appearance greeted me politely and with some pleasure, but no great stir occurred. After a year here, they take it for granted that I too have every right to meander over and watch the fun.

A snag occurs in my brilliant idea. (Both the brilliant ideas and the snags seems to happen to me a lot in Togo.) When it is time to put my thoughts into practice, I find myself looking at teenagers’ faces, my students from last year at the collège.

“No, no,” and I grab at Akou, my twelve year old favorite little sister, to stand in front of me. “I want kids like Akou. I wanted Akou to be the Virgin Mary.”

But it is a hard battle, and a losing one at that. Dismissively waving their hands at Akou, les grands shout down my insistence. Soeur Anna, you can’t be serious. Les petits ne peuvent pas maitriser comme ca. There’s no way they can learn what you want them to do. Let us do your scène. The little kids just won’t be able to handle it. Anna, just trust us…

So we practiced with the les grands. It did not go as smotthly as I would have assumed. They were inclined to wander off into a corner to practice other plays they were going to perform, and to add many minutes of ad-libbed lines to even the simplest of dialogues. (How do you stretch “Is there any room at the inn?” into a five minute monologue?) They also struggled with French comprehension – mostly likely because they weren’t really paying attention – and Justine , who showed up later, was obliged to repeat my directions in Ewe and even demonstrate for them.

“I thought you wanted the petits,” Justine said over dinner.

“I did! I do! But les grands refused. They said the little ones couldn’t do it.”

But Justine was not accepting of the teenagers’ desire to hog the spotlight. She mad it clear that I had allowed myself to be browbeaten. “Anna, it’s up to you to decide. You can at least try once and see if they could do it.”

Thus it was, two days later, when les grands didn’t show up for rehearsal, that Justine and I stage a coup d’etat against the culturally ingrained idea that hierarchy should be religiously followed, that anyone older always has authority over you, and that little ones should be seen (or sent to do errands) and not heard. We gave Akou and Adjo this message: “Go select any of your friends you want, ask them who wants to be in a play, and bring them to Anna’s house at two o’clock on Saturday.” It was rather like the Angel Gabriel sending the shepherds proclaiming in the streets of Bethlehem.

I didn’t actually have that much hope for Saturday. I can barely get adults to show up on time, let alone a group of eight- to twelve- year olds who also have to finish their chores and lack the authority to tell their mom that they have to leave now or they’ll be late. But at two thirty, looking out from my compound, I saw Akou and a friend running towards my house. “We’re coming! We’re coming!” they yelled. I have never, ever, seen anyone running because they are late for an appointment. They pulled up before me, panting. “Did the others show up yet? No? Okay, we’ll be right back – we’ll go round them up at the church.”

And five minutes later, I had a group of kids sitting on my porch, poking each other and giggling and flushed with the excitement that they were going to get to be in a play.

I think that is what I liked about the whole experience – the sheer joy and pride that the kids had that they were selected, even wanted, for this play. Later, on Christmas Eve during the traditional dances, I would spy Adjo throwing a tantrum and the next day ask Justine about it. Les grands had, at the last minute, said that only the teenagers would be dancing for the audience, including many who had never shown up to rehearsal but now wanted to take the place of the little ones who had religiously come and been allowed to practice in their stead. “But Justine, that’s not fair!” “I know,” she said, her eyes flashing with indignation. “Mais c’est comme ca qu’ils font. Ils sont mechants. They are not nice. They did that last year too. If I had been there I would not have allowed them to do that.” And so I would be glad that at the very least, the little kids had had their own starring moment and gotten to do a play (which les grands ended up doing no play at all). After Christmas, getting out of a taxi returning from Vogan, I was met by a group of my Nativity kids who enthusiastically greeted me and all carried my stuff to the house for me. “Of course they would,” said Justine when she heard about it. “Les petits sont comme ca. They know you were the only one who wanted to work with them. You’re their mama now.”