Morning
When I came out to collect my fried egg breakfast from a
very surly Sister Matilda, I found the children playing FourSquare! Elikplim was clearly in charge of the
game, announcing when a player was “out” and shuffling them from one square to
the next. Even though he was
bossy, he was fair – he went to the end of the line with no excuses when he
misplayed the ball himself.
Elikplim and his younger brother, Israel, who was so quiet
in comparison to the other boys that I almost didn’t realize he was playing,
lived at their Aunt’s house down the road before coming to HardtHaven. Not long ago they lost their mother to
AIDs and their father went missing.
A social worker referred 11 year old Israel, who then begged Edem to
take in his older brother, too.
Elikplim was working his fingers to the bone as a “house boy,” cooking,
cleaning, and raising his baby cousin.
Both boys are really sweet and helpful around the home with chores.
Speaking of doing chores; today was laundry day, which I
will never ever complain about ever
again at home. Laundry here is done by hand, bent over a bucket of Omo
suds. Omo is a powdered detergent
that also might actually eat flesh.
Sister Francesca set me up with two buckets – wash and rinse -- and
demonstrated; her hands expertly scrubbing and flipping so furiously that the
dirt was scared and splashed out right before my eyes. “Like this” she commanded, handing me
the filthy t-shirt on the top of the pile. My turn. I
rubbed and dunked, dunked and twisted, twisted rubbed and dunked. There was giggling. I splashed and sloshed, and rubbed and
dunked again. My arms got tired,
so I plopped my first victim back in the soapy tub, leaned back and
inadvertently let out an audible sigh, which sent the giggler over the
edge. I squinted into the sun at
Edem, who had magically appeared, stopping by as he does now and again to check
on everyone.
“American woman doing laundry!” he squeaked out before
doubling over in hysterics.
I was so terrible at the chore that he assigned eight year
old Kafui to supervise. As Kafui
re-washed everything right after me, I asked him questions about himself. He wants to be a bank manager when he
grows up, and he likes playing basketball, making paper airplanes with
volunteers, and drawing. He
doesn’t know when his birthday is or where he is from. His file in the office doesn’t list
those things either. He was found
by social workers, covered head-to-toe with ring-worm, selling firewood on the
side of a busy highway. No one
knows much else about him, other than that he’s “sick.”
Kafui and I hung the laundry on
the line to dry under a sun that could sprout melanoma in ten seconds flat but
for my SPF 70, and then joined the throng for lunch. Sister Matilda unceremoniously plunked down four pounds of
boiled yam garnished with oily tomato paste, flecks of soggy cabbage, and
tongue-numbing chili in front of me.
I couldn’t choke it all down so she glared at me as I dragged myself off
to my room for a nap.
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