Sunday
Posted By Sika on August 18, 2008
This morning has been interestingly mundane. We didn’t get back from dinner at Carol’s house last night until after 10 and then I was oddly captivated by Animal, Vegetable, Miracle*. This morning I awoke, fed the dog (Wanuwon—Ujeni is off with one of his many girlfriends), and got back into bed to finish my book. After I was done with that terribly hard work, I tried to convince myself that I wanted to work in my garden. I failed, although I’m going to ask Moses if I can pay him to help me redig my beds and harvest the compost out of my compost heap (and explain to Richard the purpose of the damn thing, since I’ve tried and tried and have succeeded only in getting him to hide the burning I’ve asked him to stop doing.).
My new neighbours have a new puppy I discovered this morning. He’s black and white and tiny and I’m pretty sure he’s even mouthier than Ujeni was at his age (about 4 weeks). He was barking at me like a madman until I got close enough to pet him. After playing with him a little and giving him some of Ujen’s breakfast, though, the puppy adores me.
Eventually, I convinced myself that something productive must come out of my Sunday, and so collected some compost and my cut apart peanut butter jars and washed out margarine pots to plant some tomato and pepper plants. The girl next door came back while I was sorting the pots and she and a couple of the other neighbour girls came over to “help” me. They were seriously pushing their luck, coming into the kitchen without my permission, and such.** But, I know how to deal with 4- and 6-year olds, wily though they might be. I brought Wanuwon into the house. The girls ran out screaming in response to his vicious laying on my yoga mat. I also tickled them. You’d think after 20 some odd years of dealing with small children, I’d learn that this is not the way to get them to leave you alone, but sometimes I’m a little slow.
I spent a while picking the girls up and holding them upside down (while tickling them, of course). They shouted “ineyo, ineyo” (me, me) and jostled for position—poor Brigit, whom I know the least out of the three of them, getting maybe 2/3 of the trips to dizzyland. Eventually I said I was tired like I meant it and my neighbour solemnly declared the order for the final renderings of upside down-ness. I had collected quite the audience of adults laughing at my ridiculous behaviour, but I’m pretty well used to that by now.
I’m on a mission regarding the neighbour kids and my dogs, but especially Wanuwon. I don’t quite trust him not to snap at the kids and I don’t quite trust him not to bite them if he feels threatened. And since I don’t at all trust them not to throw rocks at my dogs because they (my dogs) are barking or they (the kids) are bored, I’m trying to broker some kind of détente between the wary parties. So, I held on to Wanuwon’s lovely new collar and crouched down in the doorway to the kitchen, petting him while the girls allowed their hands to stray ever closer to the dog. Eventually they were actually petting him, and they were oh so proud of themselves. Deborah didn’t seem to find petting the dog to be a sane mode of behaviour, though, and so entertained herself by unbraiding my hair. The other girls were immediately thrilled at the idea of playing with my hair, and were only distracted when a bunch of whistles began to go off. They immediately ran to the road, along with half of everybody who lives on my street. When I followed them, I saw a bunch of guys marching in two parallel lines, nicely dressed, with a handful of umbrellas shielding them from the sun. Jeremiah later told me that they were young Yao men celebrating graduation from their initiation ceremony. When they were all gone the girls ran back to the porch to sit on my lap, play with my hair, and engaged in other such quintessentially girly behaviour. Eventually, I told them I had to go do work (this time like I meant it), and made sure to lock the kitchen door behind me.
It’s going to be very interesting trying to negotiate the rules of our relationships when we only understand half of what we say to each other.
*I started it at MST, but Mike’s copy had a list of borrowers before me about 9 million long, so I asked my dad to send me a copy. It arrived this past week, and as soon as I finished Special Topics in Calamity Physics I set to devouring Barbara Kingsolver’s book.
**I feel strange not giving my permission, but I also know that, given the freak show that I am just by existing here, I need to have a much better relationship with these girls before I let them into my house. They’ll get my permission when I feel that they want to come in because it’s nyumba ya Sika and not just because it’s nyumba yazungu.
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