Snapshots

The iron sits atop an old, empty Nescafe can. In its iron belly, embers glow orangey-gold, lending their beauty to the night’s ambiance. A white-collared shirt lays spread out beside it, waiting for her ochre hand to grasp that wooden handle and press out its weary wrinkles.

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A television commercial: for those of you who are Christians, come buy a myriad of toys for the holiday season! You can buy a plastic duck that lays eggs, or a my size (white) doll, or a xylophone, or some (white) Barbie dolls, or an art kit, or some books…with white children on the covers…

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A horse-drawn cart clippety-clops over the hard pavement, accompanied in its orchestration by the clink-clank of abundant coke bottles, laden with a beverage that will soon reach a tiny street-side stall and then the appreciative throats of parched passers-by. With the image of official looking commercial trucks hauling soda-pop in mind, I smile at the seeming simplicity of this animal, pair of wheels, and set of planks. It clinks and clops by, doing its job as well as any industrial machine…

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The leftovers of Tabaski are in a small heap along the side of the road: a pair of horns and a sheep skin tossed away like a pair of tattered sandals. Plug your nose as you go past…

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There they are; a haphazard trio of spindly, plastic pine trees, propped up before a couple smiling men with dazzling, gaudy garlands ringing their necks and wrists. They’re there, wedged in between a couple fruit stalls, grinning at me as I eye their merchandise. Voila one of the few traces of Christmas in this Allah-enraptured locale. I cannot help but chuckle at how out of place they seem.

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I’m peaceably eating my breakfast of bread when my cousin whips out a butchering knife and starts whacking away at the last piece of mouton from the holidays. The laudry-woman’s three-year-old daughter is intimidated by the sight but watches intently.