A Child's Fun

There are many things that happen daily that go unmentioned, but today I feel like writing so I’ll tell you about my day.

Main Characters:

BLAZE VALENTINE – A 3 year old boy who acquired his name from being born on Valentine’s Day. Many children are scared of white people, but this particular teacher’s boy who sees me everyday was scared of me for an entire year, only recently getting over it and now thinks we’re best friends…we’re not. He cries a lot and always pees his pants. This would be okay and not a deal breaker for our friendship except that he tends to pee his pants on my mat or my wooden chair. Not cool.

JOAQUIN – Nickname Joa. A 3 year old boy who appears to be Blaze’s boss (and also mine). This boy is in his own little world and anyone who has met him will agree. He comes to my house everyday, maybe 3 times a day to play. He cries a lot, but is still my best friend. Although communication is a problem we still listen to each other. We can sit and have full conversations (him in Luganda and me in English) and only understand little bits of what each other is saying but still talk.

DUCKLING – A newborn black and yellow fluff of adorableness.

Story:

I’m walking home from the market one day and I see Blaze and Joa playing. As I walk closer they point at something, so excited to shoe me their new toy they can hardly contain themselves. I see this tiny, fluff ball. It’s a baby duckling with its yellow and black baby fluff. Oh, it’s so cute trying to waddle away from the boys.

Blaze gets to excited he wants to catch it. He’s three and therefore hasn’t quite mastered the stop element to running. Before we know it he has run over the duckling – its head getting the brunt of the weight. When he realizes what he’s done he starts screaming and runs away.

When I get a closer look I see that the duckling isn’t quite dead but has suffered a massive blow to the head taking all feathers off. I can’t kill it – I feel awful that it’s hurt and even worse that I can’t finish it. Euthanasia is out of the realm of things I can do. I walk away leaving Joa, the tough one of our trio. I am not just leaving Joa though, I am hoping that Blaze’s screams will initiate an adult response.

Next thing I know I’m sitting on my back porch reading, trying to forget about the duckling scene. Joa comes back holding this dead duckling by the wing. He walks in my yard and goes to set it down turning around just before he does to see my reaction.



As I see this I stand up and say ‘Nedda!’ (NO!) and point further away. He thinks this is really funny because he walks about 4 steps and does it again. All the while, he is laughing. Finally he reaches a reasonable distance away and waits for my nod to chuck the baby duckling as far as a 3 year old can throw.



After this is finished they both come to my house to do a victory dance.



Speaking of unmentioned stories…Joseph just wrote a text “coming down from where we stayed this morning we passed a checkpoint where the guard had an AK47 strapped over his shoulder and an Applebees Polo-style shirt on.” We are used to the guards with the AK47s, but it is always a treat to see their ‘professional’ clothing. Any shirt with a collar is professional.