Happy Mother’s Day/Memorial Day and we landed another Rover on Mars. GO NASA!
Well this is quite a weekend. Yesterday was Mother's Day here in the RIM. It didn't appear to be much of a holiday for the mothers. The children were out of school and all the businesses were closed, thus mom was stuck monitoring the children and cooking a big feast for everyone in the household. This seemed to be quite a gyp (is that a slur on gypsy’s? And I just learned that gypsy’s is a slur on Egyptians. Who knew?) and a little backwards, if you ask me. The RIM could use a good CoCos for which to take Mom to brunch.
And today, I just remembered, is Memorial Day. Oh, all of those outdoor BBQ's that must be going, adding to your carbon footprint. I am very jealous to be missing the BBQ and the Indy 500.
Also, today was the first day that working at the Feeding Center. To be perfectly candid, I was apprehensive about this commitment I had made to Genevieve. I recall quite vividly my one and only babysitting experience. I HATED it. You may not know that about me, but I don't really like little children. Let me rephrase that. I am more comfortable and would rather do the physical work associated with little kids than sitting down on the floor and play tinker toys with them. So, I show up at the center hoping to just dive into cleaning, weighing, cooking, medicine dolling, etc........But no, I introduce myself and my intention and am thusly escorted to the room full of 40ish kids. I am then given my very own group of 8 3-4 year olds and a big wooden train puzzle. These 8 little darlings (well and frankly the whole room of 40) look at me as if I am about to eat them for breakfast. Mind you that there have been a number of French volunteers that have come through this center, months at a time, from October till about a month ago; so why this (my) new toubab face is frightening, I can not say. Anyway, we attempt this puzzle together for a bit. I try to get their names but can’t. Between the noise of the other children and the hard to pronounce Arabic names, and yet again, our lack of a common language, I can’t get a one. I do manage to tell them that my name is Sharon and not Nassraniya. Back to the puzzle. How in the hell do you teach someone the strategy of puzzling. Okay, I try, in vain, to explain that the wheels on the train should always be on the bottom, making it a bit easier to figure out which way the puzzle pieces should fit. Neither should the cows shouldn’t be upside down, nor the boat, nor the sheep, again, a clue as to the correct positioning of the piece. Mind you, they speak only Hassaniya and I can't get any of that idea conveyed in French. I am lacking this very specific vocabulary: puzzle, piece, upside down, turn it over, other way, a little to the left, right center, position, shape, wheels, caboose, engine, get your fingers out of your nose, etc. Needless to say, we had a tough time with this little puzzle. I don't believe they had ever done a puzzle prior to my arrival. Then, happily, saved by the bell. Genevieve showed up and there were clearly some doings in the office that I should look in on. Yippee, up I jump to the office.
After about 15, she leaves, I return to my post as the Puzzlemeister, and my crew of 8. Well, apparently they have done this puzzle before-many times- because when I returned they had torn it apart and reassembled it sans moi, in perfect order with no bloodshed. What next you ask? We proceed to do the puzzle a couple more times. After a bit, the center manager comes over to observe the proceedings and give her input on puzzle strategy. Let’s just say that she is far more severe in her puzzling. Puzzling is apparently a much more serious endeavor then I had naively thought. She also had way more vocabulary with which to express her strategy, because they hopped to it. “We’ll have no shenanigans during this round of the puzzle”.
Somewhere along the line we, me and the 3 year olds, start discussing (using the term very loosely) body parts: Nose, Eyes, Ears, Mouth, Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes. You see where I am going with this don't you? Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes, Head Shoulders, Knees and Toes, Knees and Tooooooes. Eyes and Ears and Mouth and Nose. Head Shoulders Knees and Toes, Knees and Toes. Well, I can't exactly get a rousing chorus going but we manage to get through it a couple of times. The little ones are having as difficult time pronouncing and memorizing the body parts as I was their names. They are intently watching my mouth to see exactly how one says “mouth”. At this English lesson, I even have staff’s attention. Let me assure you, "shoulders" is really difficult for the Mauritanian tongue to handle. And Mouth? I considered Mlouf a success.
At this point it’s 10 am, time for a meal. I am not sure if this meal is considered breakfast or lunch, so let's settle on brunch. Brunch consisted of CereAmine. (Yahoo) I think I explained in my "Day in the Life” blog about how children eat here. They certainly don't take 3 bites, walk away, come back in 10 minutes, take 3 more bites, walk away, watch TV, come back take 3 more bites as my young niece and nephews did, leaving soggy bowls of cereal on the counter all morning and prolonging the meal for hours. This food is wolfed down. If they don’t wolf it down or don’t appear to be serious about ingesting this repast, their cup taken away and given to another child to relish or at least wolf down. These tikes eat every drop, scraping the bottom and shaking the bowls to get every little morsel. Okay, so brunch is over in 10 minutes flat.
The Big News. Over the course of the morning, I have managed to fall in love. In my group of 8 3-4 year olds is the most beautiful cherub I have ever laid eyes on. I think 3 is the perfect age, just a wee bit independent and just a weep bit clingy and still small enough to lift easily. I can’t tell if it is a boy or a girl. It is dressed in jeans and a dark blue sweatshirt, so my impression is that he is a boy. He has shortish curly brown hair, a round belly, enormous brown eyes and the longest doe lashes you have ever laid eyes on. Finally he lifts up his sweatshirt to reveal a frilly t-shirt underneath. And, it appears, through my acute observation, that except for this one little boy in my group of 8 girls, all of the other groups are segregated by sex. So now I assume she is a girl. Not that it matters, because we have fallen in love. After lunch she sits nearly on top of me and I can barely take my eyes off of her. But enough romance.
Brunch is over. Let the drumming and dancing can begin. Drumming and dancing are forbidden before the brunch. I was told that we would get no quiet learning done if that rule wasn’t imposed as the girls would prefer to dance all day. The boys, not so much. They were, as to be expected, reticent about this whole, getting up in public, dancing business. But out come the tomtoms, which are plastic buckets turned upside down, and the rhythm takes over the room. Doe eyes stays very close to me; I clap and she dances. The others come too. I am the piedpiper.
Well about 11:15 and it’s time to say goodbye. One mother arrives and she promptly joins into the dancing. Another mother arrives and dances too. I assume this pickup process will take 30 – 40 minutes as the mother’s arrive to collect their little ones. But no, in mass, the remaining 40ish, 3-4 year olds leave ALONE. They just step through the gate into the road, heading home on the streets with only their little selves for protection, company and sound judgment. I gasp; my heart does a little flip; as does my stomach. I wasn’t at the center early in the morning to see them arrive alone, so I had forgotten that part of my stage life with the children in my family in Boghe. Children here are out in the roads playing alone, or being attended by a slightly older sibling as soon as they can walk. They are sent to the market to fetch such and such or to neighbors to deliver such and such as soon as they can walk surefooted. It is very, very, very difficult to witness coming from the land where little ones are coddled to the point of removing lead paint, mommy and me classes and car seats. I will need to brace myself, steel my heart for Wednesday’s mass exedux, my second day as Puzzlemeister, for this rough side of Life in the RIM.
The center manager, Fatematou, is very nice, patient with my french and unruffled by the chaos of 40 children. She seemed pleased with my interaction and presence and she said that she was glad to have me there…so all in all, a grand success.
Cheers from here,
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