Kids in the Village

Though I don’t know what they said, I am almost sure it was “White guy! See the white guys!” My brother-in-law, Tim, took me to two villages he works in. One was rather far away, roughly 150 km away (which took us 8 hours to get to on the rough roads—plus we got stuck in the mud and blew a tire), and as we would pass through the villages on the way, kids would way, shout, chase after us, try and jump on the truck. Those who got us to wave were quite tickled in their success.

Well, the second village we went to we went to after we had been in Guinea for 10 days. By this time, I was pretty used to be stared at all the time, being followed, and being the overall object of unabashed curiosity (at first, it is rather disconcerting, I must admit—though David was just as good at staring right back, though for us as adults, staring is one of those things that you’re not supposed to do). So, when we went into the village, I was much more comfortable interacting with the kids. I found them to be VERY curious, as they crowded around me. At first, only a couple of bolder kids came up to me, and grabbed my hands and walked with me. But, then, after I took a picture on my digital camera and showed them the picture of themselves, I was mobbed. Kids were pushing and fighting to get their picture taken, as well. Then, I took out my camcorder (hopefully, when I have time, I will be able to transfer this to the blog, as well), which has a little LED screen, which I can turn around so that the people who are being recorded, in this case the kids, can see themselves being taped. It was mayhem, like when people see their favorite rock star or sports player. It was hysteria, as the kids were just squealing with delight over seeing themselves moving on the screen (as this village had no electricity or running water, this was quite a sight for them, I imagine). I realized that it was really distracting for Tim, who was trying to talk to some of the men from the village, so I stopped. For the next 20 minutes, I had the undivided attention of 30 or so kids, as they pressed around me, while I played silly hand games, made weird noises, and rolled my tongue that they tried, almost always unsuccessfully (except for rolling their tongues, which many of them could do) to mimic. Even though we could say a word to each other, we were able to talk with each other. It was quite fun!