It was Christmas day and while the fathers slept off a big meal and an excess of beer and rum, the children were racing around the neighborhood: The lucky ones showing off their toys, others crowding around a youngster with his own new bicycle.

«Pedro! Come in and get dressed or you will miss the puppet show!», a mother called out from the door of a small tin-roof shanty.

It only took one call for Pedro to hurry home. And so did the rest of the kids, even those kids whose parents were still snoring in bed. Soon there was a whole column of neighborhood kids heading down the muddy roads, past the open sewers, dressed up in their Christmas outfits. Who noticed the urine smells? Who walked in muddy potholes? What with the Great White Beard Puppet Show performing at the municipal center! There were many Pedros, Joaos, Juans and Marias, Lucios and Veras, Heloisas and Joses holding hands and talking excitedly about the «Greatest Puppet Show in the World» – as the posters plastered on the walls and utility poles advertised with pictures of jolly White Beard dangling his brightly dressed puppets.

The theater was decorated with bright crepe paper and balloons which some of the more mischievous boys tried to pull down, while their older sisters pinched their ears and scolded them.

The Mayor appeared and tried to speak, but the kids kept talking and some yelled for the puppets. Not the time or place for making a political speech to the few mothers and fewer fathers in attendance. Suddenly a taped sound of a trumpet fanfare resounded, the lights were dimmed and an immense silence of expectation reigned as all eyes were focused on the puppet stage.

From a distance came the deep voice of White Beard. «Welcome to the Greatest Puppet Show in the World!»

«Welcome White Beard!» responded a chorus of children with eager faces.

A few seconds later, four puppets came on stage dressed in simple clothes, wearing sandals. The two women puppets had long braids and carried baskets of food and laundry while the men puppets wore work shirts and carried a hoe and hammer.

Soon, the puppets began to dance and sing, playing games and tricks. The agility of the puppet-master, White Beard, delighted the children. When the puppet with the hoe sat down and drank, one of the women puppets gave him a kick and told him to get up. He grabbed her basket and down she tumbled while the other puppet couple made fun of their fallen friends.

The puppets joined together in a circle singing a merry Christmas song, while two new male and female puppets entered the stage wearing fancy clothes and began to scold the puppets with their baskets and tools for playing instead of working, singing rather than scrubbing, drinking instead of cultivating.

The simply dressed puppets turned their backs on their boss and his wife and faced the audience singing, «We work all year but on Christmas day we play! Oh, children! What do you say?»

The children’s voices rang loud and clear. «Play! Play! Play!»

Then the two rich puppets faced the audience, «If you don’t work, you don’t eat!»

The children grew indignant. «No! No! Eat and play! Play and Eat!’

The boss puppets put one hand on their hips and with the other hand pointed to the audience. But before they could speak, they received a kick in the pants from the worker puppets and fell over.

The children laughed and some stood up to cheer and denounce the act of rebellion.

«Puppets to Power» yelled the puppet with the hammer in his hand.

«Puppets to power» repeated the other puppets – except the well-dressed two.

«Puppets to power!» echoed the children clapping their hands.

There was a short interval, for the Second Act

Carnival music was playing and the youngsters waited attentively for the show to resume. Out walked the puppet who had carried the hammer, dressed in a dressy dark suit, a top hat and necktie. The other puppets continued to shout «Power to the Puppets!»

The well-dressed puppet spoke in a pompous way. «We must all work together to build a strong and free Puppet-land – the bosses and the workers, the landowner and the farmers, the maid and the mistress.»

The ‘transformed’ puppet preened and puffed up his chest and spoke with pompous words like a President was supposed to. The other puppets listened while the rich puppets applauded.

The Puppet President waved to them and pointed to his former friends and work-mates.

‘Before I became President we were poor but happy and now we are happy and poor – a great change has taken place!»

The puppets looked up. The rich puppets jumped up and down. They danced and sang.

«There are no rich and no poor. We are all puppets. If some have more and some have less, its because some are smart and others are not! So lets join hands and sing our Christmas song!

Together! Together! Workers and bosses

We’re all happy puppets on Christmas Day!»

There was a dead silence in the auditorium. White Beard boomed out’ «Come children! Lets join together and sing!»

He began to jump the puppets around in time to the music.

Dead silence. Never had so many kids attending a puppet show been so demonstrably silent.

Speaking through his President puppet, with one hand on his hip and his other finger pointing to the audience. «Here I work an hour to entertain you ungrateful kids and you don’t even clap your dirty hands! Ingrates!»

Joao and Pedro yelled, «The puppet President is a liar! Kick him in the pants!»

They urged the worker puppets. But needless to say the White Beard kept the puppets stationary.

«Down with the Puppeteer!» yelled Maria. «He won’t let the washerwoman kick the butt of the patrona!»

All the kids now stood up. «Power to the puppets! Down with the puppet master!»

Josie threw a can of soda at the Puppet President and Heloisa jumped on the stage and pulled the screen exposing White Beard.

«Fake!» she yelled.

All the kids took up the chant.

Though White Beard was big and fat, he was frightened by this roomful of kids, who were yelling and pelting him with shoes and cans. He grabbed his puppets and ran, leaving the Puppet President behind.

The most mischievous of the kids, Mario and Vera, proceeded to rip off his suit and tie and dangle him in his puppet underpants before the kids.

«Power to the Worker Puppets!» they yelled as they walked home, skipping over the pot holes and stinking sewers.

The next morning the local newspaper wrote that, «Children of the narco-traffickers disrupted a special children’s Christmas Puppet Show sponsored by the Children’s Foundation, funded by Citibank, Toyota and Repsol.

December 20, 2005