Every festive season, the petrol station forecourt changes its mood.

For most of the year, people arrive with urgency—fuel, air, a quick greeting, then off they go. But in December, they linger. Engines cool longer than necessary. Conversations stretch. People sit on their bonnets as though waiting for something unnamed to arrive.

Uncle Rwamiti noticed this years ago.

“It is the season,” he once said, “when people carry more than luggage.”

On Christmas Eve, he sat on his usual stool near the office wall, watching cars pass through—some heading home, others escaping it. Boxes of food. Sacks of produce. Suitcases tied carefully with rope. Everyone seemed busy transporting something.

But Uncle Rwamiti was watching for something else.

A man in his fifties pulled in and began rearranging items in his boot with unnecessary seriousness. Each time he closed it, he reopened it, as though hoping the contents might organise themselves.

“You are packing carefully,” Uncle Rwamiti observed.

The man laughed. “My wife says if I forget anything, Christmas will not forgive me.”

Uncle Rwamiti nodded. “Christmas has become very demanding.”

The man sighed. “It is the only time everyone is watching.”

That, Uncle Rwamiti thought, explained a great deal.

During festive seasons, people transport many things: food, gifts, expectations, apologies, explanations. But the one thing most people forget to pack is the thing they have accumulated the most of—experience.

Experience has no container. It does not fit into boxes. And so it is often left behind.

Later that afternoon, a young woman stopped to buy soda. She greeted Uncle Rwamiti politely and said, “You look like someone who knows many stories.”

“I have watched people arrive and depart for a long time,” he replied. “That is usually enough.”

She smiled. “You should write them down. People would pay.”

Uncle Rwamiti chuckled. “If people paid for wisdom, the world would be quieter.”

She laughed, unsure whether he was joking.

The truth, Uncle Rwamiti knew, was simpler. Most people did not lack wisdom. They lacked the habit of sitting with it. The festive season, ironically, offered both opportunity and resistance.

Families gathered, but conversations stayed shallow. Elders were present, but unheard. Stories hovered in the air, but no one asked the questions that would invite them forward.

In the old days, Uncle Rwamiti remembered, festivals were less about performance and more about transmission. Children listened. Adults repeated themselves. Elders spoke slowly, knowing someone might one day remember.

Now, phones were charged more carefully than memories.

That evening, a group of young men stopped to rest. One joked loudly about “old people who talk too much.” Another laughed and said, “They should start a YouTube channel.”

Uncle Rwamiti said nothing. Humour, when forced, quickly becomes noise.

Later, when the laughter died down and the road grew quiet, one of the young men returned alone.

“You really sit here every day?” he asked.

“Yes,” Uncle Rwamiti replied.

“And you don’t get bored?”

“I get useful,” Uncle Rwamiti said.

The young man frowned. “How?”

“By noticing,” Uncle Rwamiti replied. “And by remembering what others forget quickly.”

The young man hesitated. “My grandfather used to tell stories like that. We never recorded them.”

Uncle Rwamiti looked at him gently. “Most knowledge disappears not because it is unimportant, but because everyone is busy celebrating.”

Festive seasons, Uncle Rwamiti believed, had become seasons of consumption rather than conservation. We preserved meat, drinks, and photographs, but allowed insight to spoil quietly in the heat.

And yet, the opportunity remained.

A long drive home. A quiet afternoon. A moment when someone finally asked, “What was it like in your time?” Or simply, “What did you learn?”

Knowledge legacy did not require conferences or ceremonies. It required presence. Patience. Permission.

It required sitting still long enough for someone to speak—and caring enough to listen without interruption.

As Christmas morning arrived, Uncle Rwamiti watched families drive off again, lighter in luggage, heavier in silence. Some would return home unchanged. Others would carry fragments of conversations they did not yet understand.

That was enough.

Legacy, he knew, was not built through grand declarations. It was built in ordinary moments that were not rushed past.

And perhaps the greatest festive gift was not what we brought home, but what we finally allowed to be passed on—before the forecourt emptied again and the year quietly turned.

⸻

Dr Petero Wamala
Translates examined and lived knowledge into public narratives—
including books, audiobooks, and documentaries.