Ilha de Moçambique
Posted By Sika on August 21, 2009
Ilha de Moçambique (I’m spelling it the Portuguese way not to be pretentious or to demonstrate my cultural understanding and superior foreign language spelling skills–although it’s useful for those purposes, too, but because there’s a whole key dedicated to ç and it seems mean not to use it.) is so small that I’ve walked every major road in 2 days, going slowly, and only taking a couple of hours for each walk. I don´t need a map–and believe me when I say it must be very small for my directionless self to not get lost.
Yesterday, when I was walking around, this little boy, probably about 1.5 years old, came right up to me and took both of my hands in his, never saying a word. He just stared.
I tried to decide if the white on his scalp was sand or fungus (proof, after all, that I am not such a good person).
He reached down to touch my ankle tattoo, then took my hand again.
I said, “Bom dia.”
He just stared at me, still holding my hands.
His mom came up, and I said “Bom dia” to her, too. She answered me, and as if a spell was lifted, the little boy decided it is far more fun to run from mama than to hold a stranger’s hands. So he took off, checking periodically that his mama was following him.
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