Have a good day. There is a lot of talk everywhere about you and Christmas. All the shopping centers and main streets in the city are getting ready with ribbons and lights. Loudspeaker are sending out music at the street corners. I wouldn't like to offend you but I want to share this with you: for me and for hundreds of millions in Latin America, Africa and some place in the South East, this is the worst time of the year. It is already a tragedy for us the rest of the time. But don't be afraid, it is not so much to ask you for presents that I write: I only want you to give me the gift of your time to read this short letter. Anyway, I know you have a rather small sledge and surely that is why you never come by these rural areas. Indeed ¿how could you if there is no snow hereabouts? In the continent where I was born, more than half of the people are suffering hunger. I don't want to tire you with numbers right now in December, but I must tell you that we die (there is no sense in saying "we live") with the equivalent of a dollar a day. It is not I who says it, of course, but very serious people who will spend some very nice Christmas. The first thing I would like you to give me as a gift is an explanation for this. On the one hand they tell me that my continent, like Africa, are producers of basic needs, natural products and food. On the other hand international organizations say that there is enough food for everybody to eat well. Please, give me the gift of an answer: Why is it then that we are dying of hunger and avoidable diseases? This is why I do not write to you asking for toys. Many people say that they have to give toys at Christmas because of all that about fantasy and emotions. They organize great public donations of plastic toys, teddy bears, blond little dolls with blue eyes, though we have brown skin and cannot eat up those toys. What we do is try to sell them and buy food. By the TV networks of our country they are saying all the time that parents must buy toys for their children this Christmas. Every year it is the same: they are fabulous toys, with brilliant colors that work with batteries, they have lights and make sounds. ¿Who can buy them? I suppose there are people who buy them because otherwise there would not be such publicity. I begin to think this has very little of fantasy and a lot of commercial interest. Don´t you feel humiliated? Or do you belong to the same team? I have some clues about who are the people who can buy such expensive toys. It seems that the more poor people we see the more money some rich persons can share between them. There are less and less hands to own money. But, you see, I am afraid there will be more and more hands of the poor to look for clubs. They are talking a lot about corruption in my country. It is unbelievable what politicians and government leaders earn! I haven't been to school long enough so I can't imagine what earning such a lot of money means. All I know is that number is very long. What makes me more confused and sad is that they not only justify earning so much but just when Christmas is near they keep on raising their salaries. Could it be that it is not enough to buy all the gifts that they are showing in TV? Maybe their children are asking to have them and they are not able to buy them. Sad ¿don't you think? Maybe we should put ourselves in their place, and think about all their obligations and then having to justify their salaries. They won't find time to do their work if we are after them questioning all the time! Then they might even blame the country: "They don't let me govern" or "they gave me an administration in bankruptcy". They same thing happens with my mother, not with buying gifts, but food. We are hungry, we keep asking till she says "I haven't anything to give you". And we have to go to work. Here in my country we work in all imaginable jobs, and also in those jobs that you would find hard to imagine. Don't you see Santa Claus? If at least somebody would give me a good mask as a gift, because sometimes I have to handle toxic products, or for when planes cross our fields, spreading insecticides. I don't want to tell you more details about the things we have to do to be able to eat because they will say I am a terrorist, or I will spoil your Christmas. Santa Claus: I have an idea. Could you give us the gift of a world without corrupt politicians and such hard hearted businessmen? I don't mean only our own corrupt people but those who live in rich countries too. Because we know they keep in touch. Maybe if we shared a little of what they earn, our bellies wouldn't be so empty and we could think of playing, going to school, learning some sport, and of course we would not be so weak and ill. I realize that in other words what I am asking is for you to give me as a gift another international social, political and economical world. Many of my little friends have died and won't be here for Christmas to see it. That would be sad. Do you think I exaggerate? Maybe you think like that because you live in the city. I live in the backland. I said I wouldn't spoil your Christmas , but I can't. Really, I'm desperate; listen to this: During the last decade half of the civilians killed in wars were children. Or this: nearly a thousand million children have to work in order to survive. I'm sorry. I was about to give you the rates of child mortality, school absenteesm, life expectancy, salary discrimination, lack of opportunities… Look, Santa Claus, these things are a very cruel spectacle. Probably you, who come on a sledge to give gifts away, cannot see it in the papers. Or you might come from another planet. This is quite possible. Or, as many politicians, you live in the same world I live in but you think you live in another. I don't really know what to say because I don't quite understand things. I had so much more to share with you! But I would be robbing your time. Besides, I don't want you to feel bad, and I wish you can still have a little ride around the world. I know you won't feel that bad because you have a very strong argument in your favor: You are a source of employment! And I, after everything I said out of place, am nothing but a poor lazy kid who doesn't know a thing. And I, above this sin which burdens me since I was born, would be putting obstacles to such Christmas industry. ¿Do you think that if I had been able to go to school, I would have understood all these things and wouldn´t have been pestering you now? Who knows, because numbers are not the only explanation… With my best wishes, * Translation from Spanish: Elsie Romanenghi