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Twas the night before Christmas and all through the hut,
all the people inside heard my rumbling gut,
They had served fish and posho for the Christmas Eve feast,
and four hours later my prayers would not cease.
The seconds passed slowly, and minutes as hours,
I continued appealing to much higher powers.
Take Pepto, said one, try Maalox, another,
but the food flowed right through me, like rain through a gutter.
At the stroke of midnight, not one second the latter,
I ran out the door, creating a clatter;
In world record time I arrived at the cho (latrine)
and through the cracks in the door, my eyes saw a glow.
Relief arrived quickly, and my body now empty
Stepped into night air with a breeze blowing gently.
What's this, my mind pondered and wandered and raced,
Considering safety in this dark remote place.
The glow now quite nearer and approaching us still,
came down from above in the midwinter chill (65 degrees).
And what to our wondering eyes, do you know?
A big man in a sleigh pulled by Cape Buffalo.
His face was quite jolly and his belly so round,
He stepped down from his sleigh without making a sound.
He zipped in and out of the huts in a flash,
leaving presents in piles, for each child a stash.
For mom a new pan, and for dad a new shirt,
folded so neatly on the floor of hard dirt.
And then back to his sleigh, made of grass and bamboo,
He glanced my direction, for somehow he knew,
In a strong deep soft voice that blew through the bush,
through banana trees, mango trees, with merely a hush,
He called to his steers, each one by name,
On Bwana, on Mutto, on Kuwanguleim.
On Luba, on Koba, on Mutanguzami,
On Tenwa and finally, on Murudolfoni.
And then in a flash he was gone, as he came,
With the glow passing through the night sky like a train.
So I rushed to the hut to see what he had left,
maybe shoes or some clothes or a new small tool set.
But I saw a large box, oh what could it be,
but a lifetime supply of Immodium A-D!
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