Glimpse - Your Stories from Abroad

The boy lifted the box and shook it gently. It was wrapped in worn paper, carefully folded to hide the creases and rips of past birthdays. Hearing a rustle inside, the boy smiled and said something that I did not catch. Then he quickly slid the gold string over the edges and released the cardboard top as a small bird shot out of the box, flapping madly above the table. The boy let out a shout, his guess confirmed, as we all jumped backwards.

The boy was celebrating his 15th birthday. Earlier that day, as my aunt and I drove down the cratered road to the boy’s village, she explained that 15 is an important age here—it is when young men choose their future occupation.

We had arrived at the house in the mid-afternoon, between meals, but we were still offered tea and cookies by the boy’s mother, a jovial woman whose round body was entirely swallowed by a brilliant wrap of fabric. Before we sat down for tea, the boy’s father insisted on showing us his house and yard, which were both large by local standards. I could sense the man’s pride as we peered into each room, admiring the cement floors swept bare of the persistent red dust and walls plastered with newspaper ads and store calendars.

The father was a Lutheran pastor, my aunt had told me, to whom she taught English at the seminary many years ago. Now his son was preparing to enter a new secondary school in September, a special school to prepare young men as pastors.

After the house tour, we gathered in the dining room. My aunt and I dropped into a very forgiving couch, sinking until our knees were nearly level with our shoulders. The birthday boy sat across from us on a wooden chair, his body tense and his hands compressed between his knees. He looked nervous from the presence of foreign guests and from all the attention that was focused on him.

My aunt and I gave the boy a tin of homemade chocolate chip cookies, an English dictionary, and a black school bag. The boy accepted our gifts with both hands and murmured, “Thank you.” When we had purchased the school bag, my aunt explained the importance of offering gifts that are actually needed. At other parties and gatherings, I had seen Tanzanians exchange gifts of sugar, vegetables, eggs, and coffee—items that would always be useful. Frivolous consumerism was rare in rural Tanzania—even if you had excess money, there was very little to buy.

The boy unwrapped his parents’ gifts: a set of new pencils, a notebook, and a sheaf of writing paper. Their final gift came in a small green cardboard box with a gold cord tied over the top.

It was this box that contained the bird, which now jerked and tumbled out of control. Recovering from the initial shock, I noticed a nearly invisible string tethering the bird’s tiny foot to the box. The bird rose again, arcing crazily over our heads and causing the box to dance along the table. The boy grabbed the string and pulled the bird, still struggling in a spasm of beating wings, into his cupped hands. He proudly held it out for us to see: a yellow and green sparrow, smaller than his fist, its entire body ruffled and quivering.

Sitting on that sagging couch, nervously fidgeting from the sugar-infused tea, I realized something puzzling: I was jealous of this boy. While his life was planned and waiting for him, I hardly knew my next destination. I was in Tanzania because my future appeared as blank as the first maps of this continent. In a week, I would return to New Jersey, a place I had not set foot in for a year, and unlike this young man sitting across the table, I could not imagine the birthday gifts that would complement my future plans. My father’s career did not interest me, nor did I want a job to fill the hours of my day as mechanically as it fed my bank account. But this boy had the support of his family and a successful model in his father. I enjoyed everything he didn’t, and yet I was jealous of the one prize he had—a ready future.

The boy returned the bird to the box. “Ndege,” he said to me across the table. Ndege, I knew, was the Swahili word for “bird.”

I nodded. The word made me realize that in a few days I would board a ndege ya mashine, a mechanical bird, an airplane, that would carry me back home.

“Ndege ya mashini,” I said to the boy, holding my arms out like an airplane.

He laughed, breaking open the expressionless mask he had worn until now.

“I have never seen an airplane,” he said, shaking his head.

“They are big.” I mimed hefting a heavy sack. “Bigger than a daladala,” I said, using the word for the ubiquitous minibuses that Tanzanians rely on for transport.

He was silent, perhaps embarrassed by the small world he lived in. I scrambled for a way to rescue our halting dialogue.

“I have never seen a… a bird in jail,” I said, which was the closest I could come to the right phrase in my limited Swahili.

“He is not in jail,” the boy replied and he picked up the box, making the bird rustle inside. “He brings good luck when you release him.”

He stood up, seeming more sure of himself. “Do you want to go then?” he asked.

I realized he meant to go and release the bird. Good luck was something I needed, so I excused myself and followed him outside.