Whatever It Takes - Season 1 - Episode 12

5 years ago

Whatever It Takes - Season 1 - Episode 12

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•The Mwenyas celebrate Christmas 1995•

We had never prepared for Christmas before like we did this particular year in fact it was the first
Christmas we ever celebrated. We always watched as everyone else around us celebrated. But
this year was special after so many struggles of life we partook in celebrating it beyond the day itself.

We were celebrating good health, success…well to others to call what we had as success
was highly ridiculous but to us it was the best we’d ever had.

We started preparing a week prior to Christmas so as to experience the Christmas spirit. We bought batteries which were manufactured by a local factory. Spark batteries were the best I had
ever seen. in this era they could have given energiser a run for its market share.They were even solar rechargeable. I mean all they needed when they run low on power, was some time in the sun and they were as good as new. We were lucky that even though Mansa Batteries had been
closed a year ago, the cells were still readily available on the market at the time. Outfits were not a problem we had plenty from the parcels Amber and Sheridan sent to us.
Our examinations results were released two days before Christmas and I had made it to grade eight scoring 872 points. I was apparently one of highest scorers in the whole province and I was
selected to go to Fatima girls secondary in Ndola.

This added to our celebration but there was one more reason that made this particular Christmas very special and that was our baptism on Christmas eve.

We wore white dresses and shoes and carried candles all symbolising purity of faith, the cleansing power of baptism and the light that we were supposed to radiate afterwards. Despite being younger than me, April was considerably taller than both Mweshi and I. She was also a shade
brighter than both of us and took after mother’s complexion. Prior to the baptism we had undergone Confession.We sat in the front right column together with our friends during mass.

The bishop and priests came forth and we were called to join them on the alter.we denounced the devil
and professed our faith and the bishop performed the sacrament after which the whole church broke into song and dance.

Being a Christmas eve we were also celebrating the birth of our
saviour Jesus Christ. It was generally a joyous night such that we didn’t even care so much about the time. It was already midnight by the time we reached home and that meant sleeping only for afew hours before the break of dawn.

We woke up very early regardless of the period of sleep and cleaned. We were all eager to celebrate but we had budgeted in such a way that we didn’t use more than required. We had to be
mindful after all considering we had issues of school still pending. After cleaning we prepared our food and set up the table. The feast was a typical Zambian Christmas of rice and chicken.

Each one was served with a huge bowl of rice with soup and a piece of chicken with a cup of supa dip juice to wash it down. It was indeed a very merry Christmas in our house. It felt great eating and chatting together.

After eating it was time to dance. Christmas- New year period was the noisiest in my neighbourhood as each house competed to play the music the loudest. We inserted
the batteries in the stereo and powered it on. we then played some rhumba from father’s collection of audio tapes. Koffi Olomide was the artist of the time and we danced our waists out .

Each round the best dancer was rewarded with balloons and sweets and so we each shook our tail feathers like our lives depended on it. It was a happy day of joy, dance and song and I still recall it
vividly to this very day……