t’s a Friday night and Gulu is poppin’.  Really – poppin – I don’t know if it gunfire or truck backfire.  It sounds a little ominous, but as usual – after 7PM I’m in for the night…  so whatever is happening will have to happen without me.

 

Life has settled into something akin to “normal”  as the rainy season continues and mornings are cool and the spider population that created such beautiful webs a week or so ago has turned into something more like Arachnophobia.    Lots of the creepy crawlies inside this week and some are just too big to ignore, so I capture them in a glass, slip a piece of paper underneath and deposit them outside…   Guess I need to do a spider clearing ceremony, huh.

 

Some progress has been noted on the front of a gaggle of little girls that have followed me home every day for months.  These are adorable little girls, but even those came become annoying after a bit.  What started as good-natured and curious hello’s to “Byonce,” the name they have given me (have NO idea why) had become over the course of a few weeks – relentless demands for money and “where do you live.”  Then they would  try to follow me home – as a pack.  This is uncomfortable, because home is home and kids here, once they find out where you live, tend to camp out on your front porch and look in your windows.  I wanted to discourage this – and the begging – before it became any more of an issue.  

 

Taking a cue from a friend, I  tried to handle this casually and first explained that demanding or begging form money is considered “bad manners,” something they understand.    Well, that didn’t work and the next time the ring leader brazenly grabbed at my open (my mistake) purse as I was walking away.  Well that did it… that’s just obnoxious. I knew I’d have to be not quite so nice.  So many Muzungus have just handed over money here, it seems to be an expected thing and so much part of the problem.  The next day it happened again and the trail of little girls had expanded into a gang of about seven ranging in age from about 5 – 9.   Once again, I stopped them before we got to my alley and said that that absolutely could not follow me home, that because they were my friends and I care about them I want them to grow up with good manners.  If I let them continue doing this, I would be teaching them bad behavior – etc. etc. etc.     One has to choose language carefully, because some of the subtleties of English are just plain lost  You have to be very simple and very direct and at the same time, you don’t want to make enemies of them because – well – they know where you live.  These, it turns out, live right behind me…

 

Amazingly, they have settled down.  For a few days, just shouts from the street.  And the next day – there they were following me again in a raucous rag-tag group.  I stopped and said hello, and they began again – to follow me.  I stopped and said “You’re following me…” but they had brought their youngest member – a tiny little thing with a halo of bouncing piglet tails done up with beads – must have been all of two years old  – to meet me.   I knelt down and said hello – shook hands with this wide eyed child who was part curious and part terrified of the white person.     And as we got to the corner, they stopped and waved bye.  Somehow, they have decided that this is the cut-off point indicating that – somehow – we have communicated.    They no longer demand money or follow me home, but we still seems to be “friends.”    We’re only on day three of this new behavior – but so far so good

 

It seems to be one extreme or the other though.  When I went to the market last week to shop for vegetables, a toddler ran terrified to his mother all the while pointing at me and screaming.  Great laughter all around by the mothers.  We tried to make friends, but this kid was having nuthin’ to do with this scary white woman.