A Christmas Present

The second day after I arrived it was Christmas in Ethiopia. Since I was
still recovering from slight jet-lag, I had gone to bed early the night
before and woke up feeling refreshed around 5am. I got out of bed and
opened the curtains to find the holiday sun rising above Addis Ababa. It
seemed like a fiery head upon the sky's orange shoulders, and in the
foreground there were still lights on in some of the windows of the
houses below. Above a mountain visible in the horizon, two birds flew
across the sky. It was so gorgeous that if they'd had Santa's sleigh in
tow I would not have been surprised.