Every December. Namibian Christmas: Stories, Reflections, Poems, by Hans-Volker Gretschel et al.

Every December. Namibian Christmas: Stories, Reflections, Poems, by Hans-Volker Gretschel et al. Kuiseb Publishers. Windhoek, Namibia 2017. ISBN 9789994576531 / ISBN 978-99945-76-53-1

The following Christmas story was contributed to "Every December. Namibian Christmas: Stories, Reflections, Poems" by Professor Hans-Volker Gretschel.

Hans-Volker Gretschel  

The Christmas Wish (Hans-Volker Gretschel)

It was already late afternoon, 18h30 to be precise, when they were eventually dropped off at the house in Klein-Windhoek, because the seven girls in the minibus had used several tricks to delay the trip from the farm school. The social worker was aware of the fact that the girls had wasted time, but she had neither said anything nor reminded them of the time; she had just let them go ahead. She knew the reasons and understood the seven of them only too well. Now, as the slightly battered cardboard suitcase and the sports bag stood next to her on the pavement, there was no time for a long goodbye. The other girls also had to be delivered to their guest families before dusk. They would spend the Christmas holidays with families, who were willing to take on one of the children who had returned from the former GDR. The girls barely had time to reassure each other that they had the other guest families' phone numbers and to promise to keep in touch regularly. The door of the minibus closed, the social worker turned the car around and it vanished around the next bend. There she was, facing her host parents for the next six weeks. Mr and Mrs Bender gave her a friendly smile, a little unsure as well, she thought, while two big dogs barked like angry beasts behind the fence. She would learn only later that dogs in the so-called "white suburbs" in Windhoek often reacted aggressively when they saw or smelled black people. A sense of loneliness and abandonment crept up on her like a big, cold animal. Reluctantly, she stretched out her hand and heard her hoarse voice say, "Hi, I am Shafondjodi." Mr and Mrs Bender shook her hand and Mrs Bender simply said, "Welcome, Shafondjodi. Just call me Brigitte, and my husband's name is Dieter", she felt the tension slowly leaving her body. She gripped her sports bag at the handles, lifted it effortlessly and followed Mr Bender, who carried her suitcase, through the front garden into the house. Mrs Bender followed and closed the garden gate. They passed through a short passage and a kitchen that seemed quite tiny to her, and entered a large, bright veranda. The two dogs raged on behind a security door, until Mr Bender ordered them to be quiet, which he had to do more than once: "Jule, Kimba out!" A boy and a girl sat at a round table, looking at her with big eyes Shafondjodi went to the table, on which a Monopoly game was set up with game figurines, houses and hotels. "And what are your names?", she asked. The boy stood up abruptly and threw the two dices in his hand onto the game board, so that some houses and hotels tumbled over and some even fell to the floor. He turned around silently and disappeared into his room at the end of the veranda. The door slammed shut behind him. The girl looked up and smiled. "My name is Doris,"she said, "and his name is Michael. Don't worry about him, boys are stupid sometimes." "I know," answered Shafondjodi. "By the way, my name is Shafondjodi." Doris laughed out loud. "Shafondjodi, what kind of a name is that?" Shafondjodi sat down at the table and explained. "Doris, it's an Ovambo name and it means my child is a dream. I know quite a number of girls with this name." [...]

This is an excerpt from Every December. Namibian Christmas: Stories, Reflections, Poems, by Hans-Volker Gretschel et al.

Title: Every December
Subtitle: Namibian Christmas: Stories, Reflections, Poems
Authors: various
Publisher: Kuiseb Publishers
Windhoek, Namibia 2017
ISBN 9789994576531 / ISBN 978-99945-76-53-1
Softcover, 15 x 21 cm, 104 pages, several colour photographs