A Merry Little Christmas
by Bruce H. Mero
Carefully,
I led the little donkey up the six or eight steps to the portico. Jim nodded
that he was ready. I swung open the two doors. Everyone in the little church turned
to see what was happening. I tugged on the donkey's lead and he started over
the last step, but caught his front foot on the threshold, tripped and fell to
its knees at the top step. On its back, Father Christmas lurched forward and
pitched over the donkey's neck and head, sprawling onto the tile floor. The bag
of gifts he had slung over his shoulder catapulted into the air between the
pews and crashed on the floor midway to the altar. The contents of the sack
spilled out. Presents spewed up the aisle, apples, oranges and pomegranates
rolled under the seats. The kids screeched and scrambled to pick up the presents
in a frenzy. I'd managed to dodge the falling donkey, the flying Father
Christmas and the airborne sack of goodies and went to Jim's side to help him
to his feet. He was groaning and laughing. He'd skinned his knees, ripping the
Santa pants in the process. His laughing quickly turned to a deep "Ho, Ho,
Ho" as he popped up, pretending that his entrance flop had been planned
all along. He merged into the scramble of kids, picking up gifts and fruit off
the floor and placing them into outstretched hands. I retreated to the entry
stairs and led the poor little donkey back down the steps, handed the rope to
its owner Mahmood and paid him the agreed-upon five tomans for renting his
animal. I shook his hand and wished him "Aide shoma mobarack"...equivalent
to happy holidays, in Farsi.
Pastor Kahlil's
church service was ended, there was no way that he could restore order and
continue any further. His ad hoc
congregation headed to the exit, the excitement in the kids was palpable.
Outside, snowflakes were drifting out of the night sky as if on a Christmas Eve
cue. One of the older Iranian gentlemen
leaving the church said that he'd never been in Kerman when it snowed, this was
the first time in his fifty years!
Our group
of Peace Corps volunteers headed through the falling snow to Jim and Cindy
Ranii's house on Zariff Street, about a kilometer's walk from the church. There
we ate and drank Russian Vodka until midnight.
A third of
the group spent the night at Len and Marsha's house, a third slept at our place
in the bazaar and the rest stayed at Jim and Cindy's. We awoke Christmas
morning to six inches of snow on the ground. It was purely magical, though to the
residents of Kerman it was a nuisance. Automobile traffic ground to an absolute
halt. Anyone foolish enough to try to
drive on the streets quickly learned of the folly they'd undertaken. No one native
to Kerman had ever driven on snow there before and the few taxi drivers who dared,
spun tires and skidded around and bumped into things. The sidewalks were icy
and walking was difficult. The streets were mostly empty as we led our group
back to Zariff Street and to the Ranii's for Christmas breakfast.
The bazaar
hummed with activity as though it summer. On the way to the Ranii house, we
stopped at the bakery near the end of the bazaar and picked up a dozen flat
breads, nonie sangak, hot out of the oven. At the shop across the alley, we
purchased several pails of fresh yogurt, a kilo of goat cheese and a couple of
football-shaped melons. We met up with the group who'd spent the night at Len
and Marsha's place at Maidone Moshtack as they were turning onto Zariff Street.
They'd also picked up flat bread and yogurt, as well as a couple of kilos of
pomegranates and grapefruits and a huge sack of jumbo shrimp and lobsters brought
up that morning from the Persian Gulf by lorry that had, somehow, negotiated
the snow covered and icy roads.
We never once
saw a car on Zariff Street, the roads on this end of town were so bad no one
was attempting to drive on them. Getting to the Ranii house by foot on the slippery
sidewalks was a challenge since no one had winter boots, of course. Most of us
were also freezing. Nobody had brought winter coats or hats or scarves or mittens
to Iran. The group milled around outside another bakery as Gretchen and Marsha
went inside to purchase a couple of kilos of colompay cookies, a Kerman
specialty, pocket pastries filled with fig jam. The bakery was warm inside and
before long a number of folks in our group had jammed into the little store to
buy more cookies...and to defrost.
Jim and
Cindy's house was just up the block. It was toasty inside and smelled
marvelous. Cindy had baked a half-dozen loaves of bread, American style, while
the rest of us were drinking vodka the night before and was now cooking a huge
batch of French toast. Gretchen pulled a quart of New York State maple syrup
out of the bag she was carrying, a gift from a friend at home that had arrived in the mail a few weeks
prior. She and Cindy had planned the menu for this communal breakfast all
along.
We feasted.
Breakfast was followed by rounds of celebratory vodka shots and other
inebriants, then followed by several kilos of freshly boiled shrimp and lobster,
then more vodka. I lifted my glass and offered a toast to our hosts, Jim and
Cindy and to Jim's brilliant idea to get as many Peace Corps volunteers as
possible to Kerman for Christmas and then to Pastor Kahlil for last night's
church service. The Father Christmas thing had been Kahlil's idea. Jim had
discussed his plot to get a bunch of volunteers into town and asked if Kahlil
would have a Christmas Eve service in his little Anglican church. Kahlil's wife,
Janet, instantly agreed that he'd do the service. She was a little lonely as
the only Australian in town, and welcomed the opportunity to have company and conversations
in English with real Westerners for a change. Kahlil came up with a the ancient,
faded, red Father Christmas costume that Jim wore into the church on Christmas
Eve. Jim was a tall, skinny guy and the suit was meant for a much fatter man,
so it hung huge on him. He tied a rope around his waist to keep the pants from
falling down and had to roll the pants legs up several times to keep from
tripping on them. Jim's scruffy black beard and mustache had to serve for the fake
Santa beard Kahlil had in his costume box. That one was old, gray and moldy and
Jim refused to put it on.
The donkey
was my idea and I'd arranged to "rent" him from Ahmad's brother,
Mahmood. Ahmad was the tea man at the State of Kerman Engineering Office where
Jim, Gretchen and I worked. I paid five times the asking price for Jim's ride
up the stairs of the church. The simple gifts and fruits in Father Christmas'
sack were accumulated as a group effort.
Over forty
Peace Corps volunteers had come into Kerman by bus from all over Iran. There
were no telephones to do the inviting, so we mentioned the gathering to a few
volunteers we'd seen recently and word-of-mouth did the rest. Fortunately, we'd
spoken of the intended gathering to our friend, Siad Nejhad who'd informed the
secret police of our plans prior to Christmas Eve. None of our guests were
detained or hassled by the police, as would have been the case for foreigners
arriving in town unannounced, had Siad not been out front on our behalf.
Pastor Kahlil
had invited as many people as he knew to the service. The pews were filled in
that little Anglican church for the first time since Kahlil had assumed the
pastor's position and moved his family into town.
Janet
reveled in the company of so many English speaking visitors. She and Kahlil and
their kids spent as much time at Jim and Cindy's house as they could and had many
of our volunteer friends to their house for tea the morning after Christmas, before
anyone had returned home. Half of our company left on buses as soon as the snow
on the roads had melted and bus service in and out of Kerman had resumed. The
remaining folks left over the next week, no one seemed to be in a real hurry to
get back home, absorbing the camaraderie of the group and making it last as
long as possible. Janet soaked in as much English as she could while our guests
were in town.
It was a
perfect Christmas. Friends gathered and celebrated. It snowed for the first
time in over half a century. The church was filled. The children who were
attending that night received presents from Father Christmas who flew through
the doors of the church and tossed his gifts to everyone who was there. It
couldn't have been any better.
Our house
guests left just in time, the cold snap which brought the snow to Kerman on
Christmas Eve lasted for a couple of weeks. It got so cold that the underground
water pipes coming into our house in the bazaar froze and burst. Streams of
water spurted into the air from the broken pipes. Eventually we found the
shut-off valve and made the repairs to the pipes. We took it all in stride, the
mellow we were on from that perfect Christmas celebration was within us weeks
later. It returned to me as I recounted this story, all of these years later.
Merry Christmas to you all!
