One thing you learn to get used to and even cherish in Lamu are the various infestations of bugs in your home. At first, the hundreds of ants in the kitchen seem like a nuisance, until you realize they stay out of the fridge just fine and are quite efficient at cleaning up after you (on their own timescale of course). The large ants are a little more alarming, but they compensate by looking really cool; they're big enough for you to see them wash their antennae with their front legs, and its quite funny watching them continually fall over as they attempt to balance some unwieldy burden. Sometimes they pick fights with the smaller ants, with predictable results. The flies, well the flies are unredeemable, but there are not quite so many of them as to qualify as an infestation. And while they don't make it into the house (at least not yet), the donkeys must be mentioned (because Patience insists on it). "They're wonderful. With their furry little heads, and babies..." that's a direct quote. I think she's still annoyed that I throw a hissy fit every time she pets them. She just doesn't understand that donkeys around here aren't used to that kind of treatment - they much prefer being beaten. Well, probably not, but they're certainly more accustomed to it. And they do flinch a little bit whenever Patience rubs their heads. They are decidely beasts of burden, not pets, in Lamu. And they are EVERYWHERE. Standing in the narrow alleys, rolling around in the town square, grazing through the various garbage pits (from which they appear to do quite well), and, oddly, meandering between grounded boats at low tide. (I honestly don't know what they're getting out there, unless somehow they're digging up shellfish or cast off ropes!).
On Tuesday we had a new kind of infestation - children. Somehow I didn't notice the dozen or so flip flops and backpacks when I went in the front door. But as soon as I entered our bedroom I was mobbed. 3 or so boys sat around the computer fiddling with the music volume, another set was trying to get the stereo working (they succeeded a few minutes later). The rest swarmed me, greeted me and named me mjombe (uncle) since I was obviously the other half of "auntie" (which they did not translate into Swahili). The greeting itself was actually quite cute, they would each briefly take my hand, say hujambo (hello) and then kiss their hand. It’s a quite common greeting style among adults as well, but cuter when kids do it. Apparently this was the same gaggle of girls who had been greeting Patience in the street and following her around. On Tuesday they seemed to gather enough courage to follow her home and made it into the house. I heard later they'd gone upstairs and played on the hammock a bit before being chased off of it by Jeffa (he's the custodian of the house). It had been 15 minutes by the time I arrived and Patience asked me to get them to leave (some of them understand some English, but Swahili is much more effective). Eventually I got them to leave, but only after promising that we would attend the birthday party of one of the girls on Friday. This was at lunchtime, around 12:45.
They came back twice more that day, or rather, six of them did. They wanted to go see the view from our balcony upstairs (which is quite nice). I again had to shoo them away from the hammock, and they noted that the wind was very strong up their. One of the girls asked for food, and the other girls laughed. Patience and I decided it would probably start a bad precedent to be feeding them, especially since we don't know any of their parents. Maybe we'll relent once we know their situations better. I gave them 5 minutes upstairs on the second visit, and didn't invite them inside on the third visit.
They've come back every day since then, to ensure that we'd come to the birthday party, which we did. They told us to come at 4pm. As usual, we were on time, but needed to wait about an hour and a half before anything actually started. We were escorted up the stairs of one of the Swahili houses to an upstairs courtyard with a large doorless room behind us, a kitchen on the left side, and another closed door (we think it was a bedroom) to our right side. They laid down handwoven mats - one for sitting, the other serving as a dance floor - and within 20 minutes a male relative brought up a boombox and started a CD. He disappeared never to return, but about 4 mothers came in and out of the room as the girls danced and played with balloons (which Patience had been pressed into buying ahead of time, along with candles and streamers). In the back room were the two birthday girls getting all dolled up. It was very much like a rehearsal for the bride's party at a Swahili wedding. The music was generally Taarab music, but a few remixed American songs as well as some Bollywood ballads made their way into the mix as well. Taarab is a local style of music heavily influenced by Arab and Hindi styles and instruments. One girl in particular (who wants to be a Taarab singer when she grows up) latched on to Patience and made her dance with her, or alternately demanded Patience to sit and watch while she danced. As a man I was neither invited nor expected to dance. There were a few young boys there as well, but they rarely danced, mainly confining themselves to playing tag, stealing balloons, and generally doing disruptive boy things that are apparently common fare around the world. Finally, around 6, the two birthday girls made their appearance (after a couple of false alarms). A path was cleared between the 25 or so kids (including not a few babies being babysat by their "older" siblings who were attending); then the girls were ushered out by one of the moms, while the other moms took pictures with their cell phones. One of the girls was forced to throw out the 4 or 5 mint candies that had been placed in her hand, and the walked as a pair toward a bed (a hand-woven mat affixed to a wooden frame, quite comfortable). They were followed by another girl holding a small urn burning some incense. Once the girls were seated, bhajia was served (small round bits of dense fried dough), then some punch. Out of nowhere, the wazungu (that's us) were summoned to sit with the girls on the bed for pictures. It took them a while to manage to get all of us into the cell phone camera view finders, but they were happy with it by the end. Realizing this was our best chance, we pulled out some colorful animal-shaped erasers that we'd gotten from Grandma Grace just for an occasion like this, and gave three each to the birthday girls.
This was a bad idea. Instant mayhem ensued as the children rushed to grab the erasers from the birthday girls, as well as the remaining ones that we'd brought. (I had come with 20 erasers hoping to give one to each of the children at the party, but when more than 30 arrived we thought it best to give it just to the birthday girls). We managed to wave off the kids initial strike, and gave the remaining erasers one of the moms, but at least one of the little boys managed to sneak one off anyway. After a few more pictures, the girls went to join the dancing, and we were served some light cake (more of a sweet bread), more bhajia, and some punch (which was quite good). Eventually we were able to beg off to go home (I took my cue from the dancing girl who asked "are you going to go home now?"), with the moms and everyone assuring us that we were welcome anytime.
Since then, the visits have tapered off a bit, though one girl (one of the ring leaders) has come seeking erasers for here and her friends. Today she came because, "ninataka kukuangalia" - I wanted to see you. So there you have it, we've been adopted. And just for the record, I don't really mean to relate all the kids to an infestation of bugs; they're all very nice and respectful, just a tad too persistent.
No comments:
Post a Comment