So last weekend I tried out single mother-hood and brought
Rosalie, one of my favorite kids from last year’s village life, up to Parakou
to give her a taste of the “big city world” out there. She’s about 4 years old and I adore her
because she’s a boss. I was
expecting her to freak out being away from her family and seeing some place so
different, but she took it like a champ.
First thing she did when she got to my house: strap a stuffed animal to
her back and start playing with scissors.
She started getting fussy at the end of the weekend, but when her dad came to pick her up she just talked about all the food she
got to eat and how she wants to stay.
She’s pretty much the coolest kid ever and I hope that she never lets go
of her ‘don’t take no nonsense from nobody’ attitude—Benin needs women
like that.
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picking her up from her house in Kêmon (a village of maybe 2,000 people)
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trying on the dress I had made for her. It was a little too small at first so I tried to take it off
so that it wouldn’t rip before taking it to the seamstress for re-sizing. It literally took 3 of us to hold her
down and get the dress off, and then she insisted on sleeping with it.
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ready to hit the town
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failed attempts at kite flying (not enough wind. Boo) |
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taking a nap at the restaurant
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we found a little ‘amusement park’ for kids. Here she is knocking down all the little boys on the
trampoline.
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hopefully a glimpse into her future…
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Friday night dinner (please note the matching outfits… and the 2 older
boys that she was bossing around all night)
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breakfast at my house.
She wouldn’t let me help her tie her pagne, so it ended up being more
like a toga for a while.
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she convinced me to carry her around on my back for a while
when she started getting homesick
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