The Other End of Giving

Have you ever wondered what happens to the Christmas shoeboxes you pack, gift-wrap, and donate every holiday season?

I found out this past February when a shipment of such boxes arrived in my village from an organization called Samaritan’s Purse. For a small fee (the equivalent of 20 cents per box), a mom could pick up a shoebox for each of her children from the post office. (I’m still not sure why there was a small surcharge, but that amount was not a barrier for any families as far as I could tell.) My host mom came home that afternoon with 4 boxes. An unpacking frenzy ensued.

After the initial excitement, my oldest host sister Daria carefully laid out and catalogued the contents of all the packages on the living room floor on behalf of the family as a collective: 4 toothbrushes and toothpastes, two bars of soap, two knitted hats and scarves, two knitted hand-puppets, one doll, 2 British Pounds, one box of pencils, 5 small notepads, one matchbox car, one wind-up toy, a pair of socks, and a number of other trinkets my memory—and the kids—have lost with time.

For the rest of the week I had students coming up to me asking to translate fairytale story books, explain pocket-size Parcheesi sets, and otherwise identify simple but utterly unfamiliar toys (to them). I had one student write all her answers on a magic magnet sheet (that erased the answer when you lifted the top sheet) for the rest of the semester so I could check them before she copied them into her notebook.

Months later, the toothpaste tubes have been exhausted and the McDonald’s caliber toys have been all but forgotten, but Ainuru still carries around the doll as if it were her own child and a number of new pencils are still in the cabinet awaiting the start of the new school year. So on behalf of a very thankful family and a village, thanks to all who took the time to fill a shoebox this year. It was a pleasure to witness the joy on the other end of giving.