Because They're Burning Bricks

I didn’t find many people to talk to in my wandering. John, over and over again, as accidentally we ate together at least once a day, and some Peace Corps Volunteers at one point (also, the French couple that had upped the azungu quotient of our minibus too much on the way over, but with whom I never managed to find a conversational in.)

But it was a small town, and I did find children to play with who would then happen upon me later in the day. One day I was waiting for a lackluster sunset and these two girls came along and started to chat with me. They did the ubiquitous pen-begging, and seemed to think my refusal to give them my admittedly awesome pen was nonsensical—since obviously I had an unlimited supply in my suitcase. I asked the girls if they even went to school, and they both said yes, although later I found out that wasn’t true. One of the girls did go to school, but the reason the other was so successful at hunting me down during the day was her lack of scholarly obligations.

The girls did a lot of begging—more than I normally stand for. But every time I was about to tell them to go away, they would forget they were meant to be seeing what they could get from the rich white girl and would start to play instead. They were cute borrowing my sunglasses, and although I considered (to my shame*) they might steal my expensive polarized lenses of non-squintiness, it didn’t ever seem to occur to them. One of the girls was fascinated by my hair** and, when I said I had no hair ties on me, pulled one off her wrist and proceeded to try different styles of ponytales on me. I managed to keep her from making too much of a wreck of my hair, and just laughed when she tried to charge me US$20 for the ponytail holder (I gave it back. I would’ve given it back anyway).

Eventually the girls attracted schoolmates. Well, schoolmates of the girl whose family could afford school. Which looked like it might be an unwelcome turn of events, at first, what with the rapid Portuguese and the sheer crackling energy that multiplies and takes over amongst any group of children old enough to get into trouble on their own. But the power of the display on the back of a digital camera is an amazingly effective focusing device, and I managed to get them all to behave reasonably well by taking pictures of their silhouettes in the setting sun.

The two original girls tried to follow me back to where I was staying, but I somehow tricked them so that they didn’t know where I was specifically staying. This kept them from coming to play for about 24 hours, until they narrowed it down further when I ran into one of the girls after school, and the other was running an errand for her father that took her down an alley near Casa Branca, where I was staying. After that she just showed up on the steps to chat periodically. Chatting never lasted long, and was limited by my rusty Spanish, awful Portuguese, and her total lack of English. Inevitably there was a pen request, and a bit of a lackluster attempt at making me feel guilty for my lack of pen donations, but we had a nice time.

*When I start having uncharitable thoughts like this, the shame of thinking the worst of people—especially children—is a roiling burn in my gut while the fear that I may be overly naïve and taken advantage of is a frozen prickling down the back of my neck. I don’t know if other people have this push/pull of emotions when in situations like this, but for me it’s part of what makes traveling exhausting. Successfully navigating it all is part of what makes traveling worth it.

**While this is a semi-common experience, it doesn’t happen nearly as often as you might think.

?

I didn’t find many people to talk to in my wandering. John, over and over again, as accidentally we ate together at least once a day, and some Peace Corps Volunteers at one point (also, the French couple that had upped the azungu quotient of our minibus too much on the way over, but with whom I never managed to find a conversational in.)

But it was a small town, and I did find children to play with who would then happen upon me later in the day. One day I was waiting for a lackluster sunset and these two girls came along and started to chat with me. They did the ubiquitous pen-begging, and seemed to think my refusal to give them my admittedly awesome pen was nonsensical—since obviously I had an unlimited supply in my suitcase. I asked the girls if they even went to school, and they both said yes, although later I found out that wasn’t true. One of the girls did go to school, but the reason the other was so successful at hunting me down during the day was her lack of scholarly obligations.

The girls did a lot of begging—more than I normally stand for. But every time I was about to tell them to go away, they would forget they were meant to be seeing what they could get from the rich white girl and would start to play instead. They were cute borrowing my sunglasses, and although I considered (to my shame*) they might steal my expensive polarized lenses of non-squintiness, it didn’t ever seem to occur to them. One of the girls was fascinated by my hair** and, when I said I had no hair ties on me, pulled one off her wrist and proceeded to try different styles of ponytales on me. I managed to keep her from making too much of a wreck of my hair, and just laughed when she tried to charge me US$20 for the ponytail holder (I gave it back. I would’ve given it back anyway).

Eventually the girls attracted schoolmates. Well, schoolmates of the girl whose family could afford school. Which looked like it might be an unwelcome turn of events, at first, what with the rapid Portuguese and the sheer crackling energy that multiplies and takes over amongst any group of children old enough to get into trouble on their own. But the power of the display on the back of a digital camera is an amazingly effective focusing device, and I managed to get them all to behave reasonably well by taking pictures of their silhouettes in the setting sun.

The two original girls tried to follow me back to where I was staying, but I somehow tricked them so that they didn’t know where I was specifically staying. This kept them from coming to play for about 24 hours, until they narrowed it down further when I ran into one of the girls after school, and the other was running an errand for her father that took her down an alley near Casa Branca, where I was staying. After that she just showed up on the steps to chat periodically. Chatting never lasted long, and was limited by my rusty Spanish, awful Portuguese, and her total lack of English. Inevitably there was a pen request, and a bit of a lackluster attempt at making me feel guilty for my lack of pen donations, but we had a nice time.

*When I start having uncharitable thoughts like this, the shame of thinking the worst of people—especially children—is a roiling burn in my gut while the fear that I may be overly naïve and taken advantage of is a frozen prickling down the back of my neck. I don’t know if other people have this push/pull of emotions when in situations like this, but for me it’s part of what makes traveling exhausting. Successfully navigating it all is part of what makes traveling worth it.

**While this is a semi-common experience, it doesn’t happen nearly as often as you might think.

?