Close to Christmas day, a caravan in the holy land was headed to Bethlehem.
Well, not exactly, but it was close enough; the small caravan was passing through a small complex of ancient houses, but they were a recreation, made for the hundreds of tourists that come to this park that is somewhere close to the border with Jordan, most of the actors were in biblical period costumes, but most tourists, like Alejandra were spared the need to follow the ancient ways.
The organizer of this trip to the holy land was the mother of Alejandra and her sisters had come to, as her mother described, “a great event”; mother was very involved in religious matters and was keen to see that this trip would influence her “heathen” daughters to become close to god, specially the youngest one: Alejandra. More than once she had shown to her mother that she was following very “heretical” ideas, like that time when Alejandra was watching a video on evolution for a school assignment. At least her primary interest was on “non-threatening” veterinary science as her mother thought.
[spoiler]The caravan was going around the park stopping at locations with recreations of events of the new testament, however, Alejandra was elsewhere while she was riding on her donkey as it was one of the few in the caravan that was equipped with wireless internet.
The whole family thought that in a park that recreated the past it would be hard for her to get access to her weird sources. Unfortunately for them and to the joy of little Alejandra, a few of the donkeys had wireless connections consisting of special collars that transmitted the signals to the cell towers that could be spotted at a distance.
“For a tourist trap, I have to say this is nice, both the wireless and the animals” said Alejandra, but it was said in a whisper to their sisters, their mother was ahead of the group on a camel next to a very good friend of the family that was expecting her first child.
The three sisters had not much of a say on their choice of vacation. Last year’s vacation was at a Christian theme park in the USA, this time it was more interesting as they also visited Jerusalem, but this park was annoying for the sisters, this time of the year it was less dusty, but it was chilly, and the ride was a long one between the recreated villages; mercifully, several of the reenactments of biblical scenes were done indoors and the group could rest and look for local art pieces to take home. Mother was having a great time though.
In the afternoon the caravan left the recreated town of Nazareth, and they were on their way to “Bethlehem”, their destination; where a reenactment of the Nativity was going to take place.
The middle sister, Beatriz, was getting angry with the older sister.
“Carmen, I think you should drop the act, I think you are very close to mom’s ideas, you do have some hope that what mother is planning to do will fulfill some Christian prophecy.”
“I already told her to drop the act” Alejandra said with little emotion with her head looking attentively at her portable computer, “just leave Carmen alone Beatriz, you should be kind as we already know that you did not swallow all of what your new age and Wicca friends told you about the Mayan end of times. But you still appeared to be disappointed in your pictures standing next to the mayan temple in the Yucatan that you posted in the web a few weeks ago.”
Carmen and Beatriz were annoyed that their little brat of a sister had the habit of being right almost all of the time, and with an internet connection they usually found that she was indeed correct.
Alejandra continued, “Speaking of the likely plan of mom’s, I did a little research, the social page of her pregnant friend shows efforts to deal with fertility problems, so get this: her husband there is not likely to be the biological father.”
The older sisters looked at each other and then to the couple ahead of them, they paused so hard than even their mounts stopped for a moment too, then with heads shaking a loud “naaah!” came from them while they made their burros move along.
Carmen mentioned that Maria, the friend of mother’s, had told her that this trip was thank the lord because her prayers were finally answered, but Alejandra and her sisters suspected that it was an almost naked attempt at fulfilling some weird prophecy.
“Do you forget that Maria means “Mary” in Spanish?” Beatriz said in a loud voice, Carmen hushed her.
Still, Carmen insisted that it was more likely that this was just a coincidence and made a bet with Alejandra that there would not be any freak reactions from mother when the time of the birth did arrive, Alejandra took the bet and insisted into making it double if something else took place.
The caravan crossed a small creek in the middle of the park, they were getting closer to a village when they were surprised to see a donkey peeking over a fence at a distance.
“That has to be the tallest donkey I have ever seen or it is standing on a roof!” Carmen said.
Getting closer they found that the sad looking donkey was up in the air, attached to a cart that had tumbled backwards.
“That was too much weight for that little guy!” Remarked Alejandra.
Members of the caravan helped the driver of the cart to right it and removed the little donkey from the harness it was attached to, Alejandra noticed scars made by whips on the donkey, and his legs got hurt a little bit because of the cart tumble. She quickly found out on an internet search that bad treatment to donkeys was common in the middle east, one site reported that donkeys were still used a lot in the Holy Land, but they were cheap and ““when they become sick or injured they are simply abandoned on the roads, left tethered without food or water, or taken to landfill sites and dumped like rubbish. Often these stray donkeys fall prey to groups of children.” - The Telegraph”
Alejandra already knew how it was when kids got hold of weak or strange kids and animals back home and took pity of “burrito”, he demanded to the guides to let her take care of the donkey and guide him to the stable to ensure that he would have proper care and not to dump him as they were threatening to do.
“Will you promise to take care of burrito here?” Alejandra pleaded with anxiety.
“I can not do miracles”, the lead tourist guide that was playing father Abraham told the sisters with a heavy accent to the sisters, “there are people from the world human society that do take care of them over here and some groups even have places where they put donkeys to eat grass and weed around the date trees to keep the trees accessible, but kids rarely get attached to the little beasts” said the guide with a frown and looking now at Alejandra. ““Places that are the equivalent of the “Farm with a good couple that will take care of the animals” like in America are rare also over here.””
Alejandra would not budge, but as they were in a hurry the lead guide instructed others to let her take care of the slightly wounded beast until they arrived to the stables later in the night.
For the donkey, named “Burrito” by Alejandra, it was a nice surprise to get a rest, and the beast appreciated that Alejandra was guiding him and not riding on him, she walked all the way next to him and did apply some bandages to his wounds.
As soon as they got to the stables in the “town” of Bethlehem, Alejandra made an excellent work of dressing the wounds of the poor animal and convinced one of the handlers to not do anything with the animal until the next day. She got just in time to the main building to see the recreation of the virgin birth, when suddenly a real one took place in the seats next to her.
It was really embarrassing to see their mother trying to get closer to the small room next to the mangler and getting into the nerves of the doctor that fortunately was available, their mother was loudly praying about the end of times and the fulfillment of prophecy as “a new king was being born”.
She finally calmed and sulked only after being told that Maria just had a healthy baby girl…
“Well, I lost the bet”, Carmen grumpily told Alejandra, “but how did you know that it was going to be a girl? Are you becoming a witch like our sister?”
“Nah, nothing sinister, I had been in contact with the husband, I knew that he was not a member of Maria’s sect and he reported to me that they decided to have the trip when Mother invited them with all expenses paid, Maria was lukewarm to the “prophecy” of mom’s but they did not mention to her if it was going to be a boy or a girl, I deduced it was a girl because in her social page Maria made remarks about the toys and clothing the baby could expect to get.”
Maria later did mention that she was not convinced on what Alejandra’s mother had planned, she was very happy for her baby though, and the sisters promised to be the godmothers of the new baby. As a parting present the sisters offered the new family a few gold commemorative coins, and a gift certificate from the gift shop for some frankincense and myrrh.
“Wise girls huh?” said mother the next day, she was very humble now, “Oh well, it was not meant to be.. ..yet!” with “yet” said with an evil looking emphasis, making the sisters worry, they sighted but they still loved her dearly, even if she was an eccentric, she was still a very good mother.
Before getting into the bus to the airport and back to their mansion, Alejandra realized that there was still one important gift to give.
Alejandra approached the stable and found the little donkey. Burrito did show affection for the one that had taken care of him.
“And what can I get you for Christmas little fella?” Alejandra said to him while petting him with one hand and searching for some items online and sending messages with the other.
“Where are you taking this donkey little miss?” The tour guide said after Alejandra paid well for the donkey.
“Well, I’m not a maker of miracles either Mr. “Abraham”, but I got money from a bet and I have enough to rent a small truck to take burrito to a date farm with the “nice family” that you talked about, they will appreciate a contribution for the great work they do for donkeys and my family will get lots of date palm fruits in exchange.”
Burrito was surprised to find his reins removed and being led by the kind girl to a truck, and after a short trip, he was led to a very peaceful place with lots of palms and other donkeys to keep company and no whips around.
For this little donkey, a finer miracle could not be conceived.[/spoiler]