i want a cat because i have a big problem. the problem keeps eating my clothes.

12 april 2010

I thought that this was a pretty clever way to use circumlocution today talking to my bike taxi driver when I forgot the word for "rat" in kinyarwanda.

This evening Adeline and I shared what was probably my favorite string of moments here in Rwanda. After a slight misting of rain fell late this afternoon, the clouds gave way to blue sky and sunbeams and I decided I'd better get out of the house (I can only use the "i'm so so tired from vacation" excuse to be lazy for so long). I put my markers and notebook in my backpack and headed up to Papa's house. When I got there, Adeline was available and decided to come along with me.

The whole walk there was a natural flow conversation - gliding in and out of English and Kinyarwanda without notice to which words belong to which language. Adeline is getting so good at English. I like to think I have a big role to play in that but the truth of the matter is that she's spending a lot of time learning it in school as well. Sometimes I wonder if she'll remember back to when she was just a 9 or 10 year old girl and if I'll show up there in her memory storage bin. "Remember when that white girl moved to our village.. cooked us pizza and sang songs about bananas?" is what I imagine it will be like.

Anyway, we got to Musangabo. I wrote a couple of post cards while Adeline went to work practicing writing and drawing with the markers. It's funny, it seems like in America most children try to fit as many colors as possible on the page. Here, I think maybe it's because kids don't really have access to such a variety, they tend to stick with one, maybe two colors although there could be 47 laid out before them.

For one reason or another, just as I'd packed up all of our coloring materials, thinking it was time to head home and begin cooking (I went to the market today and got cheese as well as other pizza fixings - pizza night is the best!), Adeline and I found ourselves displaced. We became sitters in the tall grasses bearing soft white feathers at their ends. Sitters soon turned to rollers which turned to crawlers.

Hands and Knees.

We were lions, there were growls deep in our throats.

I imagined my shoulder blades jarring out of my back, we kept our heads below the grass line and brought our hands up as if they were big paws full of dangerous claws.

This predatorily state only became exaggerated when the sounds of two little boys met our ears.

Spotting us, they giggled and stared.

"What the heck is that muzungu doing?!" I'm sure they were asking to themselves, but Adeline and I were too caught up in our play to pay the ridiculousness of the situation any notice.

The funny thing is that I actually felt like a lion. It was as if I was back to being 10 years old myself. As the breeze kicked up, I let it carry me to the edge of the grasses and up onto my feet where I sprang into leaps of a gazelle.. and not long after, Adeline was the shadow following my every move.

the sun was caught behind the clouds and the high reaches of the volcano, the escaping light washing us in a bath of gold as we preformed our own rendition of the Lion King, conquering Musangabo and dancing in the waving grasses.

It was beautiful.

Silly, but beautiful.

Before we did head back, Adeline picked herself some grasses that reached above her own head. It was the second time today that she referred to something - having similar qualities to herself, whether human or not, as her friend.

The grass was taller than her and therefore her friend.

Dyral Ann, my family's duck in America, she was telling her sister, is 10 years old - just like her - and is therefore also her friend.

Walking home in the sunset, I noticed that the grass was no longer in Adeline's pocket and asked her "where is your friend?"

"hano" (here) she said?

"Where?"

Then she reached out and put her hand on my arm, "hano".

This little girl could melt my heart.

Hopefully tomorrow I'll find the words to explain my lion-like tendencies - maybe I spent a bit too much time safaring in Uganda this past week. Too much safari? Is that possible?