Muhammadu

I loved kids in the states. I had a blast playing with them and I think I was pretty darn good at it. Apparently I lost all those abilities sometime during the flight here because I’m awful with the kids in my village. I like to blame the fact that I’m not as fluent as I’d like to be in Hausa, but let just face the facts, shall we? Really, I don’t have the patience anymore. It’s much different in a village; kids aren’t restricted in any way. So as the neighborhood kids are whiling away their lazy afternoons, why shouldn’t they bang on the door to the white girl’s concession and yell mean things at her? Unfortunately, I’d probably do the same thing if I were in their shoes, when they wear shoes. I’ve become much more selective about which kids I’ll play with for the sake of my sanity. The terrorizers aren’t on the list of my favorite parts of Nigerien life. Except one. I don’t know what it is about little Muhammadu, but man o man he cracks me up. Picture your most eccentric friend (most likely someone involved in theatre) and multiply that personality by 10 and cram it into the body of a 3 year old kid and you’ve got Muhammadu. A favorite past time of his is to follow me around during my journeys about the village to greet people. It’s very rare to see adults interacting with kids in this culture, unless the child is too young to take care of itself and is tied permanently to the back of the mother. Usually it ends in the child getting threatened or hit for being a disrespectful nuisance. So for a kid to be following an adult around by himself is very bold. Muhammadu will march along with me rambling on in Hausa that I can barely understand about his dad’s motorcycle. Villagers often think I stole a child from one of the bigger cities. I tell them that no, this is in fact my son. His father is in the house cooking. (That always gets a great response; “Oh Baraka, you’re so silly! Men don’t cook!”) I’ve stopped letting kids into my concession (again for the sake of sanity) but Muhammadu seems to think this rule shouldn’t apply to him. He tromps on in and sits down next to me until I carry him outside and lock my door, where he sits and shouts rude obscenities about my mother, sorry mom! And still he’s my favorite. When I was painting a map in my school, I had problems with village kids shouting at me and coming into the classroom to steal chalk while I was working. As usual, Muhammadu followed me to work one day and sat down in the desks. I figured I’d put him to work as my personal guard, thinking that no self-respecting 10 year old child would be shooed away by a 3 year old. To my surprise it worked! In between spontaneous dance parties and A+ attempts at breaking my ipod, Muhammadu successfully scared away packs of kids 3 times his age. I did have to turn away from my work every 4 seconds to stop him from going through my purse, but I was thankful for his help. Plus, every time I’d turn around to tell him, “No Muhammadu, that’s not ok!” he looked up at me with the most innocent face imaginable and responded, “No, not ok!” before going right back to what he was doing as soon as I turned back to work. That’s just funny. It’s one of those situations where the thing that bothers you most turns out to be the best part of your day. Or at least gives you a good laugh.