Today I woke up at 5:15. I spent half an hour watching the sky lighten through my window. The dawn breaks twice here. Once over the horizon, once over the roof of the convent. You have to see it to really understand.
We’ve been doing a lot of group work in my English classes. I like it because the students can talk and I can circulate. Today while I was circulating I felt something tug at my hair. I turned around and found one of my students crouching on top of her desk with her arm outstretched. She was trying to touch my hair without me noticing. When I turned and saw her she gave me a look of utter mortification and almost fell off her desk. The class burst out laughing. I guess this is one unforeseen problem with letting my hair grow out.
I went for a walk after teaching and found a little boy sitting by the road in nothing but a dirty tee shirt. He couldn’t have been older than four. He had a small scythe and was playing with the sharp end, a sadly common sight. I wanted to intervene without scaring him so I crouched down a few feet away from him and whispered, “Hey, kid!” He looked up at me and grinned. “Muzuuunguuu,” he cooed. I was about to tell him I had a name and that it wasn’t muzungu but before I could say anything he dropped the scythe, ran over, and wound both arms around my neck. “Are you okay?” I asked. “Muzuuuuunguuuu,” he said, and started nuzzling my face. Children are often curious about me but the nuzzling definitely wasn’t something I’d encountered before. I tried to stand up. He went with me, dangling off my neck. I told him I had to go. He wrapped his legs around my waist. He didn’t let me go until his mother came and told him to leave me alone. I asked her if he had some kind of problem. “He likes muzungus,” she said.
Once a small child ran at me with a stick. I think he intended to defend his house. He was valiant in his attack, though he cried in terror the whole time. So that’s one possible response, and then there’s the boy with the scythe who nuzzled me. I’ll never understand the kids here.
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