Bread for Everyone

In 1995, I moved to South Africa with Seth, Palesa, and Manko. Seth was starting university, Manko was nine and was re-starting first grade. She and Palesa had been born in Lesotho, had lived there all their lives. They had known conditions most first-world people cannot imagine. It was their first time to attend an English-speaking school in a developed country. They had never received material gifts. The people in their village did not celebrate children's birthdays, and although the Basotho were Christianized in the 1800s, and they celebrated Christmas, they didn't have the concept of gift-giving and presents. There would have been no discretionary cash. Gifts were unknown to them.

Not wanting to make my children seem too different, I explained to school administrators in South Africa that their first language was Sesotho (not unusual, in South Africa), but I didn't explain much about their past. As Christmas drew near, all the children were asked to write on a slip of paper what they wanted for Christmas.

The other children asked for dolls, bicycles, trucks, chemistry sets. Manko's teacher phoned me at work to tell me the teachers were all very puzzled by Manko's Christmas wish. They didn't understand.

She wrote, "Bread for everyone."

It was the biggest dream she could imagine. If everyone could just have bread. How different the world would be.

Manko has learned to want what others in the western world want. She was happy to receive gifts this year and every year since 1995. But today, as I went to the bakery to buy bread to take to the new year's eve fondue party I'm going to, I remembered Manko's first Christmas wish. I wish it still. If everyone, all over the world, could just have bread...if there were food for everyone at some subsistence level, it would be a kinder, gentler, more generous world. If we could all curb our greed, there would be bread for everyone. And so that is my wish, this New Year's Eve. May there be bread for everyone.

This bakery, and the dear, shy, busy woman who minds the till and hands out bread to the customers, and who felt very embarrassed about being in front of a camera, is on my One Street: NW 21st Avenue.