“S.O.S. The container has arrived: I do not know where to begin, PLEASE HELP ME!”, Cecilia told me on the phone. I immediately took some days off and left for Botswana.

We spent entire days busy with matching up shoes and dividing clothes according to size and weight. All this took place in the dust, in a hot sunny day (average temperatures were around 104-107°F), with low blood pressure and clouds of insects all around. The children looked around now and then, excited and bursting with curiosity; I communicated with them by smiling or with simple gestures.

It took us three days for the distribution of summer clothing, a pair of shoes and two pairs of children underwear. The children arrived in couples, carrying a card with their uncommon names and their gender, since it is hard to distinguish a boy from a girl as their heads have been shaved. I write their names on a bag, where I put the shoes I have chosen while Cecilia gives them the clothes that in most cases have been selected by the kids themselves. Often the kids need a bath and therefore they are sent to Felicia, as she is in charge for the children’s health and hygiene.

I felt unforgettable emotions, like the day when Cecilia discovered that K. was finally back. K. is a little girl who had not come to the Home for a long time and who will start attending elementary school next January. She looked like a sad stranded puppy; she was dirty, with her shaved head covered with scabs and wearing a pair of worn-out, branded shoes that had been given to her a year back.

For days, under the burning sun, I heard the children sing a Christmas Carol, to emphasise that special atmosphere which precedes the Christmas party. We wrapped 100 gifts with the wrapping paper that I had brought from Italy in my suitcase and that had been donated by a close friend owning a typography. Of course the gifts were all donations or second-hands. The party was a success! The children were all clean and happy, wearing their new clothes. The parents, mostly women, arrived in the morning in coloured apparels. The most beautiful women were the Hereros, wearing long dresses and multi-layer skirts flapping around when they moved, together with their traditional, funny-looking headgears whose top looks like a set of horns. The children performed a typical San dance, during which the mums participated with a few moves of their own. The teachers wanted to represent the characters of the crib: a girl was Holy Mary, with a black doll in her arms, while a little child suffering from health problems (but always smiling) played Saint Joseph. Other children were angels, animals of the bush, butterflies…it was a Kalahari-style Christmas crib. This great day of joy ended by serving some refreshments.

Anna