Dear Santa Claus, the writer is an Italian boomer in Kenya who has more or less lived here for 35 years.

I say ‘more or less’ because Italians in Kenya are atypical emigrants: they are all ‘Africa-sick’ but they have not lost the ‘ben d'Italia’, in the sense of the benefits and the possibility of returning several times a year to their homeland. They are not like those in Australia or South America, who over time integrate and become almost more citizens of that country, and of Italy they retain only distant memories, music that is no longer heard in Italy itself, and eating habits.

I also did this until about 15 years ago. I used to go back to where I was born and raised to see relatives, friends, some concerts, an exhibition, treat myself, present my books... but they were all excuses to eat porcini mushrooms, mussels and clams, anchovies from Monterosso, Roman puntarelle, truffles from Acqualagna, squacquerone cheese from Romagna, Tuscan chianina, fossa cheese, culatello from Zibello, red prawns from Mazara... and I won't start with the wine pairings, otherwise we'll get to Easter at least and move on to dessert and bubbles.

Dear Santa, you have understood that if you want to give a gift to an Italian in Kenya, you are on the safe side with food and wine. But I work with my compatriots here, in the sense that I often talk and write about those who arrive and those who return often: I have to deal with their problems, their aspirations, the little misunderstandings, the queries, the good deeds and the crap they do, their troubles.
So for this year, my gift list for Italian boomers like me is a little different from what you would expect.

BRACEL-ETA

To all those who, after 12 months and after I have written 67 articles on the subject, have still not understood what eTA (electronic travel authorisation, necessary to come to Kenya) is, I would like you to give them an electronic bracelet that is activated when they decide to leave. We put all their data in there, so they can't make a mistake when uploading their data, put the photo in the right format, they don't have to invent the invitation letters or worry about putting the address of the villa in Watamu that they haven't reported to the tax authorities.
With the bracelet, moreover, many of them will be immediately reachable in Kenya, since hardly anyone registers on the ‘Where are we in the world’ portal and when it happens that they get into trouble, no one can help them and they even have the courage to complain to their institutions.

SUBCUTANEOUS ENGLISH

Dear Santa Claus, if you can get most of our boomer compatriots who frequent Kenya and are unfamiliar with neither languages nor mobile phone apps, a subcutaneous English course under the tree, with artificial intelligence microchip and simultaneous translator with a tone of voice less annoying than theirs and no dialectal inflection.
So that they stop getting angry at waiters in local restaurants because they don't understand the order of ‘a grilled grouper fillet well done but not burnt without seasoning with sautéed vegetables and gluten-free bread’, and that they don't pretend to be understood by those who have the Kenyan equivalent of fifth grade and in a few years have learnt Italian better than them, but still don't grasp Bergamasque. If you can find even one with ‘elementary Kiswahili’, maybe we won't even hear them call Tuk Tuk ‘tutu’, baobab ‘bau bau’, matatu ‘macaque’ and so on...

TRUE LOVE FILTER

Dear Santa, to all the single men and women who frequent Kenya especially for ‘that’ reason, I would like you to put under the tree a concoction prepared by an Eskimo ‘mganga’, of the kind you know, capable of finally making the 70-year-old pensioner fall in love with a 56-year-old Kenyan woman, rather than the half-century-younger student, and the white spinster with a Kenyan accountant with a belly older than her, rather than the tortoiseshell beach boy. I'm not asking this out of envy, I assure you, but for the fun of knocking down a few clichés about interested tourism in Kenya, and hearing less tearful complaints (and legal entanglements) later...

TOTAL BLACK SUNSCREEN

To those who frequent, even for many years, the coastal resorts and believe that not only Kenya, but the whole of Africa is like this, including beach boys and schoolgirls who speak Italian, naked children among the mud huts who wave like Heidi's goats and more or less anyone at your service for 200 shillings a day, to those who think Malindi is a suburb of Riccione and Watamu of Formentera, please bring them a suntan cream so powerful that after just two sunbathing sessions on the beach, they will become directly giriama and kikuyu, lips, noses and buttocks included. In this way they can safely discover even the neighbourhoods and situations where the ‘mzungu’ cannot go, walk down the street at sunset without being mugged, ride a bodaboda without a helmet without being stopped by the police, decide to stop and work without a permit and not have to bribe officials, and finally realise that Kenya is big, diverse and just one of many examples of Africa. See for yourself, Father Christmas, if you can find a cream for them whose effect does not wear off for a while after they return to Italy. There will be fun to be had...