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For those of us who
found Jesus in a crib, not in Bethlehem of Judea, but in the goat shade
in our remote African villages, celebrating Christmas meant a change in
the normal course of our daily lives. The birth of Jesus meant that
something different would happen in the family diet as well as in the
ways we normally costumed ourselves.

There was no real Christmas if
there was no rice to be eaten in a way it was not eaten in our normal
daily dieting. Christmas was, for us, rice and more rice and more rice!
And of course there was no Christmas rice if there was no animal to
kill and bleed, at least a fowl. There was no proper Christmas if there
were no set of new clothes and shoes to put on.

How could anyone
approach Mary’s Boy-child in his crib with old clothes on? Christmas
meant the newness we had never known, a newness of the old story. But
it also particularly meant some special noise in the neighbourhood: the
noise of cooking and eating; the noise of the arrival of the people of
the city; the noises of fireworks, locally made from matches and
carbide or wrapped-up explosives brought by the people from the city;
the noises of some new masquerade or group dance, and of some
house-to-house carolling and carousing; the noises of noises in our
feasting hearts, et cetera.

Christmas, the
perspective of the village, still is the time for the city to remember
what it has almost forgotten. The people of the city will visit the
village and add to the warmth and noise in the air. City things make
Christmas in the village glow and so every family looks forward to the
return of its ambassadors from the city.

Perhaps this is one
thing that Igbo ethnic persons in Nigeria are now known for: every
Christmas and New Year, they must return to their villages to make
their homesteads warm and sufficiently noisy. None wants to deny their
family the joy of the noise of that reunion.

There are family
meetings to be held, disputes to be settled, relationships to be
serviced. There are community projects to launch and funds to be
raised. It is a time to make the village begin to happen again as a
“community” and those who fail to return without any good reason are
seen as people who have chosen to be “outside” the community, in fact
some thoughts away from self-ostracism! Christ is born in Bethlehem, a
choir sings. But, hold it there! Bethlehem is no other place than my
village in Anambra State, Nigeria. If you say that is a lie, then you
would be the one to pay the
ten-ten-thousand-Naira-plus-five-cartons-of-beer fine that the
Development Union of my village has slammed upon any member not found
in the village this Christmas for the launch of a new project. Yes,
“TEN-TEN thousand Naira” fine plus-or-minus the usual gragra from the
Union’s Executive and harassment by the Provost, the official police
officer of the Union.

That Bethlehem is
my village and my village is Bethlehem where three-times-three wise men
from Eastern Nigeria must go also means that other parts of Nigeria
where they live and do their businesses would become empty during
Christmas. I am not sure their hosts in these parts of the country like
it. The shops would be locked up for at least two weeks and it would be
difficult to see where to buy what one needs or to get a service one
requires. I am not sure the pastors in the churches they attend in
these other parts of the country like it either, for it means that the
offertory tray would be starved throughout this very “fertile” period.
Ah well, the churches in the villages rejoice and thank God that, as
the Igbo say, the termite has eventually fallen for the toad after
flying about.

It is also some
good business for the people of the road: commercial vehicle operators,
touts, fast food vendors, beggars, emergency motor mechanics, the
police, (ah, yes, the POLICE!), the customs officials, vehicle
inspection officers, and other uniformed and non-uniformed problem
people on Nigerian roads. The people of the road look forward to the
celebration of the birth of Christ for an improvement in their income.
Christmas, for them, means more noise in their pockets or that the
new-born king has redistributed wealth, so that someone has to pay
extra for looking for a noisy celebration in another location on the
Nigerian map. Their Christmas has to be noisier than someone else’s
too, after all, the Star that is leading the three-times-three wise men
to where Jesus lies in the crib in the village also has to drop its
light on the affairs of other social actors.

Yes, my Christmas is noisier than yours because I am one of the
three-times-three wise men whose journey, too, is a cause for
celebration, even when it creates some emptiness here and some
congestion there!