Monday, March 28, 2011
West African Whippersnappers
Written by
Chad
You probably couldn't have guessed from our awkward middle school yearbook mugshots that Tana and I would one day be famous. Not pop sensation Justin Bieber famous by any means, but A-list stars among all the kiddies around our courtyard nevertheless. Stepping outside today is like stepping onto the red carpet, except instead of autographs we give out high fives. The thing is, though, we really haven't earned our celebrity. All we've done for three months is study the village's needs and act friendly to folks. Either way we're always surrounded by these little youngsters.
Take for example the simple act of taking out the trash. For reasons that elude me, kids go maniacal over our trash. Giggling hoodlums come barreling towards me in a hysteric blitz, grabbing from every direction. These are well-fed children, so they're not trampling over each other out of desperation so much as they're competing in a game. I imagine it's the same thrill as scrambling for candy from a busted piñata. Except, yeah, it's trash. After the dust clears, they flaunt their prized scraps of plastic and cardboard but often seem puzzled as to what to make of them.
Sometime in early January we baked a Dutch applie pie in our Dutch oven and in the spirit of the Dutch shared our creation with some courtyard kids. An ant colony smelled our picnic and called out the cavalry. And when one kamikaze ant came too close for comfort to my slice, I made an example of it with the bottom of my sandal. Inspired by this murderous act, Fatouma taught us the Jula word for ant by way of song: "Sukaromusa! Ting ting! Sukaromusa! Ting ting!" It was catchy. As everyone sang the mantra, we then jammed out with a percussion ensemble comprised of bottles, pans, and me beatboxing. Since that momentous day, children the village over have somehow learned this little ditty. Round our parts, this special anthem has surpassed that World Cup song by Shakira as the most popular tune around. It's nearly April and we haven't passed a day without the little minstrels singing "Sukaromusa! Ting ting!" Here's the sheet music transcription of the song to immortalize it for future generations and civilizations to discover:
Gone are the days when we could leave the house without hordes of youth flocking around our hips, rubbing our arm hair, holding our hands, singing us songs about ants. I used to egg them on by singing along until I realized hearing it recapitulated for all of eternity may be some kind of Chinese water torture for their parents. If I were a Buddhist monk, maybe I would see the Sukaromusa song as karmic retribution for my momentary lapse of goodwill toward insectkind. Perhaps the universe is trying to remind me of grotesquities of which human nature is capable. It's okay, though. I had to kill it. The ant was after my pie.
Hopefully by the end of November 2012, we'll have earned something greater than our shallow fame as foreigners in the eyes of these youngsters. And hopefully they'll discover a more entertaining pastime than brawling over our moldy banana peals and cheese wrappers. Also hopefully we can sell "Sukaromusa! Ting ting!" to Justin Bieber, it will climb the pop charts, and my village can get rich off royalties.
As a post script, I love how the girl's shirt says: "BIG LOVE IS THE BEST / NO WARS / ONLY FRENCH KISS / ALL YOU NEED IS LOVE." I wonder how many people here ever second-guess what the English means on the apparel they wear daily. For instance, is the bush taxi passenger fellow in the picture below really who his shirt says he is? I should have had him install high-speed internet in my village mudhut while I still had the chance.
As a post post script, Tana told me my Jula spelling of sukaromusa was totally wrong, so I fixed it.
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1 comments:
that little kid with the ballerina shirt is such hipster scum. he thinks hes so cool wearing an ironic shirt. look at how smug he is. i bet hes living off of daddys trustfund.
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