The
boy has circled every toy in the catalog.
Every.
Single. Toy.
Each
one is ringed in a different color. Red, it seems, delineates the
playthings of greatest importance. Blue, as he's explained several
dozen times, means items he would prefer to arrive before Christmas.
Green is for things he would like to be preassembled if at all
possible. And yellow signifies gifts that could wait until spring …
although he'd gladly accept them with the other presents should
cluster delivery prove more convenient.
He's
thoughtful that way.
He
has even colored-coded the girl-marketed toys in rings of pink and
purple, explaining quite matter-of-factly, that Santa might bring
them for Ittybit if there were any more room in the sled.
His
sister smiled, thrust out her hip, waggled her finger and said, in
her best Big-Sister-Voice, “Oh, brother.”
It's
not as if she's immune to the infection that is consumerism, she's
just more realistic.
She's
long known the Santa who comes to our house rarely brings things you
want, let alone ALL of the things you want.
It
also helps that, as she peruses his list with the experience and
maturity of a nearly nine-year-old, she has no use for three-duck
pull toy that really quacks or a colorful crib mobile.
She's
already been there, done that, and received a few shekels for them at
a yard sale.
“No,
no. no. Santa is NEVER going to bring you all that,” she tells him
adroitly as she wrestles the ink-drenched wish list from his kung-fu
grip and dumps it into the recycling bin. “You have to search your
heart not a catalog.”
I
swooned.
You
see, we'd just been to a presentation made by former Peace Corps
volunteer Lynn Minderman, whose work in Lesotho,
a
rural village in Africa,
is
sponsored by the Ittybit's 4-H club.
Minderman
told us about how they'd helped the orphanage in the isolated
mountain village raise chickens, obtain a milking cow and grown their
own garden.
We all sat
rapt as Minderman described how nothing goes to waste: How boys are
thrilled with the gift of wires and tin cans, the raw materials with
which they make wagons; and how girls are all smiles to find bottle
caps and feed sacks they fashion into skirts for dancing.
“You
know when your parents go to the store. Maybe on a shopping trip, and
they bring a little something for you? Well when their parents go to
a camp town, maybe 50 miles away to get supplies, little girls are
hoping that they will bring home feed sacks and the boys are hoping
they will bring home wire. … Anything they find to make their
toys,” she explained, adding that she'd never seen happier children
than those in her beloved Lesotho.
I'd
imagined Ittybit was trying to make a similar point to her brother
when she closed the book and told him to “search his heart.”
But alas
...
“You
mean I should only ask for a Nintendo 3DS in Cosmo Black?”
She
nods her head. “It probably wouldn't hurt if you ask for a feed
sack, too.”
Not
there yet, but coming along.
Change,
after all, is a gradual thing.
Qholaqhoe
Mountain Connections is a 501c3 organization. One-hundred percent of
all donations go toward two projects: Qholaqhoe High School
Scholarship Program and Likoting Village Orphan Garden. No salaries
are paid and no expenses provided to the organization staff.
For
more information about Lynn Minderman and her work, or to find out
how you can help, visit www.qmconnect.org
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