I’m completely in love with two children in particular and it is damn lucky there is no international adoption in Tanzania or I would be in big trouble. I totally adore both Chiku and Shela, two girls aged 13 and 7, and when they cuddle up against my arms and gaze up into my face, I can completely imagine them feeling like my daughters. While I love all the kids, I have very different feelings for them all. There are always those who stand out for me, for example, but don’t do anything for Mandi (Jeni is one – I love her, Mandi couldn’t care less; Mandi adores Adelina, I like her but don’t have the same connection). I worship Juma but I couldn’t imagine him being my child; Mandi adores Sappy and would actually adopt him if she could but I although I love him, I wouldn’t want to be his mother. Leaving is going to be so, so ridiculous. Mandi is already dealing with the trauma she will feel (and will probably cause me) when she leaves. She’d stay permanently, she says, but there is the little issue of her husband at home in Phoenix.
They have collective moods. Some days I turn up to work and just a few come over and greet me, although none are ever actively aloof or disinterested. Other days, like Stocking Saturday (see next post), they literally burst through the HAPO fence, run across the road and leap into my arms until every part of my body is dripping children. No matter how pissed off or sad or angry I might be feeling at something else that may have happened (or, more likely, failed to happen) that day, when they do that, I get immediate amnesia. That’s when I just want to stay here forever. The way I feel when I am around the kids has really surprised me. I always liked kids but I never really loved them – the idea of having my own children never really felt like my singular purpose in life and although I enjoyed playing with them, I was always glad when I ultimately dumped them with their parents. I was nervous to come here because I wondered if I could handle spending so much time with so many kids, especially since we wouldn’t speak the same language and I am such a words person. But, that has been the single biggest surprise of this trip – how much I love just hanging out with them. They make me feel like I belong with them. They give total love and they have taught me a lot about not relying too much on verbal language to express humour, validation, love, anger, frustration.
I don’t care what anyone says, there is something special about African children. They’re completely devoid of the materialistic drive that has eaten into the West (regardless of what I might have worried about before Christmas). They’re wild and feral; they eat insects the size of my palm and they use knives as long as my arm better than I could (imagine a mother in Australia letting her 7 year old slice spinach with a chopping knife over a bucket without a chopping board). They use slingshots to kill birds for meat. They’re brave and aggressive; they stand up for themselves and for each other; they don’t cry when they bleed or when something stings or aches or burns. They don’t complain when they have to walk 6 kilometres in relentless, driving rain without an umbrella or a raincoat. They never say they’re hungry or that there’s no food in their house. They carry babies on their backs from the moment they’re able to walk; they do hard, unforgiving physical labour from the age of 6 so that by age 11, all the boys have bodies like Tupac. They have an inexhaustible list of ways to entertain each other without toys or balls or games or computers or movies or books or barbies or cars or lego.
The word that comes to mind for me, for so many of them, is “fierce”. Fierce in their fights, their courage, their will, their determination, their loyalty, their love for us. It’s a great quality, one I hope any potential child of mine has one day. Fierceness, directed in the right way, is passion. Passion is life. Life, and the joy that goes with it if approached right, is the one thing Africa has in abundance.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
They have collective moods. Some days I turn up to work and just a few come over and greet me, although none are ever actively aloof or disinterested. Other days, like Stocking Saturday (see next post), they literally burst through the HAPO fence, run across the road and leap into my arms until every part of my body is dripping children. No matter how pissed off or sad or angry I might be feeling at something else that may have happened (or, more likely, failed to happen) that day, when they do that, I get immediate amnesia. That’s when I just want to stay here forever. The way I feel when I am around the kids has really surprised me. I always liked kids but I never really loved them – the idea of having my own children never really felt like my singular purpose in life and although I enjoyed playing with them, I was always glad when I ultimately dumped them with their parents. I was nervous to come here because I wondered if I could handle spending so much time with so many kids, especially since we wouldn’t speak the same language and I am such a words person. But, that has been the single biggest surprise of this trip – how much I love just hanging out with them. They make me feel like I belong with them. They give total love and they have taught me a lot about not relying too much on verbal language to express humour, validation, love, anger, frustration.
I don’t care what anyone says, there is something special about African children. They’re completely devoid of the materialistic drive that has eaten into the West (regardless of what I might have worried about before Christmas). They’re wild and feral; they eat insects the size of my palm and they use knives as long as my arm better than I could (imagine a mother in Australia letting her 7 year old slice spinach with a chopping knife over a bucket without a chopping board). They use slingshots to kill birds for meat. They’re brave and aggressive; they stand up for themselves and for each other; they don’t cry when they bleed or when something stings or aches or burns. They don’t complain when they have to walk 6 kilometres in relentless, driving rain without an umbrella or a raincoat. They never say they’re hungry or that there’s no food in their house. They carry babies on their backs from the moment they’re able to walk; they do hard, unforgiving physical labour from the age of 6 so that by age 11, all the boys have bodies like Tupac. They have an inexhaustible list of ways to entertain each other without toys or balls or games or computers or movies or books or barbies or cars or lego.
The word that comes to mind for me, for so many of them, is “fierce”. Fierce in their fights, their courage, their will, their determination, their loyalty, their love for us. It’s a great quality, one I hope any potential child of mine has one day. Fierceness, directed in the right way, is passion. Passion is life. Life, and the joy that goes with it if approached right, is the one thing Africa has in abundance.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
[Pics:
1. Chiku
2. Kagori and her twin sister Shela
3. Me with Emmanuel, Andrew and Christina]
2. Kagori and her twin sister Shela
3. Me with Emmanuel, Andrew and Christina]
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