Neighbor kids

Webale okusomesa!

There are ups and down in life, no matter what is type of profession you have, what your romantic status may be or how comfortable your living situation is.  I live quite comfortably in Uganda and my college keeps me busy enough, and yet I find myself from time to time in a slump, or a foul/lazy/downer mood.  Today was one of those days, (however I have a sneaking suspicion it was a result of perhaps a caffeine-withdrawal).  I said farewell to a visiting PC friend, welcomed Sausia to come in and clean and then set myself up on my couch where I wouldn’t move for the better part of the day.  I drifted in and out of sleep as Sausia cleaned circles around me (which is not why I hired a maid--it was so I could be productive with other things, this just happened to happen today).  I didn’t even have enough whatever in me to even pick up a book, rather I put on re-runs of TV episodes to which I fell asleep.  It wasn’t until around three in the afternoon that I remembered I bought a packet of local coffee.  I brewed it up and mixed in hot cocoa mix to make it smell less like dirt, and suddenly I came back to life.

“Ma-wee! Ma-wee...mawee...mawwweeee...” Fortunate and Shamila were at my door.  They’ve been very persistent lately at calling my name.  With some fresh caffeine in me, I decided to stop being a hermit and go outside.  Shamila had some beautiful new studs in her ears (which her mother had been trying to convince her to wear for weeks now) and showed them off with pride.  Too cute!  I grabbed one of the few Little Libraries books still sitting on my shelf to read.  When I read on my veranda, it always starts with one book and one kid.  Shamila had wandered off, so it was just me and Fortunate, and one book.  But not for long!

Medi, Hassan, Waisa and Tenwa (all cousins) were walking by and came running up to my veranda once they saw me reading.  It was a funny story about an Italian musician saving his love from kidnappers.  I don’t know how much they understood, but they had fun pointing out things they knew in English.

“Guitar! Boat! Pirate!” It was actually a mandolin, ship and bandit, but they were close enough. 

Some of the neighbor girls, who live in the house diagonally from me, came by.  These girls don’t ever wear shoes, their clothes always have holes and are faded from years of being passed down.  A thin layer of dust covers their legs and clothing.  One girl always has a fresh scar on her face from something.  Another girl, Fatuma, never smiles, but loves to come to my veranda.  Some baby from their house, with snot all over his face, was also there.  I couldn’t pinpoint his age, but he surprised me when he could name something in English (now I can’t remember what it was).  Altogether I had maybe 10 kids huddled around me, shoving each other from time to time to get a better view of the giant picture book. 

We read “Animal Prints,” which depicts animals found in North America.  It’s hard to describe what racoons, beavers, deer and opossums are in basic English.  Surprisingly, the kids did really well with the footprint-animal matching activity at the end of the book!  Even though they’ve never seen a racoon or a mole, they could figure out if they had claws or not, and if their prints were big or small.  I was having so much fun I read four more books to them and had them point out any words they knew.  One of those books was all about a whale who had lost his way.  I don’t think they could grasp how big this whale is, and they kept calling it a shark (do you think Shark Week reaches Ugandan DSTV?  How did they know shark and not whale?  I may never know).  There was a reading activity at the end that replaced a few words with pictures.  We read this little paragraph about ten times-they loved it!  

Whenever I read outside with a group of kids, passing-by women will always say, “Mary, webale okusomesa!”  Or, thank you for teaching!  I always laugh and thank them for appreciating--to me it’s silly, I’m not teaching really.  I’m just reading a book.  When I think twice, however, I guess I am teaching.  I’m teaching more than some of their teachers teach in school.  I’m giving them a chance for incidental learning, and to ask questions.  I hope that they remember me as the white lady that used to read to them sometimes, rather than the grumpy white lady that wouldn’t let them look in her house. 

The Epic Hide-and-Seek Game

I remember, as a kid, the neighbor kids and I would organize a massive ghost-in-the-graveyard game.  It was terrifying (because it was at night) and hilarious all at the same time.  I remember playing at the Bauer’s house, just one house down from me.  They had a huge back yard with a very steep hill.  We would only be guided by the back light, and otherwise their yard was blanketed in darkness.  I don’t remember who won or whose team I was on, but I remember hiding in the bushes with anticipation.  Honestly, I don’t even remember how the game was played.  When I see neighbor kids here getting together and organizing games, I love it, and it reminds me of all the games we would play back home.       

The kids coming home from school.  Right behind them
is the house where all the neighborhood games
take place.

One day I heard Sara laughing as she was washing the dishes.  I was curious, so I peeked outside.  She was watching the kids playing  at the house diagonally across from us on the dirt path.  I don’t know how many kids live there, but it’s at least three young girls.  I think they had kids over from the place next to them.  The kids were playing some game where they all lined up on their veranda, and one girl paced back and forth with a stick.  She was waving the stick and saying something sternly at them.  They were all holding on the the edge of the veranda, eager to get up, and giggling uncontrollably.  At one point, they would all try to suddenly get up and run away, but the girl with the stick would try to whap whoever she could get.  Kids in the US may play tag games, but it’s a bit more hardcore here in Africa.  The kids were having a great deal of fun, and even the ones that got beat were still laughing.  I think the objective was to run away without getting hit by the stick.  

I love it when I see kids play elaborate pretend games.  At Medi’s place, the kids will make forts out of sticks and rice sacks, and someone will be carrying around Pooh bear on her back as the baby.  One day I found a group of girls kneeling in the sand, playing what I could only assume was a burial.  They had their hands together and mumbling prayers.  The neighbor boys can make anything into a gun, usually a matooke branch (which is bent and big enough to be a pretend AK-47).  I think it’s usually robbers and police, or perhaps rebels and army.  I never know, I just hear them making the shooting noises as they chase each other.  My favorite organized game, however, was the epic hide-and-seek game.  

Medi and Hassan, pretending to be old ladies who box.

At the same house (which seems to be the hang out for the neighborhood kids) they had gathered and organized hide-and-seek.  I only knew this because I went to throw out a cup of old coffee and there were maybe four kids lying down behind my bushes.  Sara was laughing at them, as usual, while she was mopping.  I looked at Sara and asked, “Do I not see these ones?  They are hiding?”

“Yes!” she giggled.  

There were three more kids in my alley way, were I usually throw dirty dish water.  This is also where my window is, which gives a pretty good view into my front room, if you’re tall enough.  

Kids were squatting, lying down, then running and moving position, all around my house.  At some point, some four or so tried looking in my house.  If they spoke English well, I would have said, “It is not polite to look in people’s houses.”  But they didn’t, so I had to get the message across some other way.  I waited for them to collect again, then I innocently threw a cup of water out my window and all over the five kids trying to figure out if my computer was also a television.  They ran away, giggling and screaming.  This was hysterical to Sara, and at the site of kids with wet faces and shirts, she fell over in a fit of giggles herself.  

Even as I write this, the kids are playing some type of game that requires them to reach a jerrican and hit it with a stick--some type of race.  Sara is like a refferee of sorts, saying that someone had already hit the jerrican.