Maya Bester: Tell me about your world.

In my last post I mentioned the warm and lovely Bester family.  The twins are dynamic, smart, creative, funny, and sweet.  Max got up silly early to ride with Michael and me to the airport the day of my departure, just to hang out.  He starts stories with, "once, this happened ..."  I find this a hilarious counterpoint to the ubiquitous and simply annoying “yeah, that happened” spouted by the current edition of purveyors of pop culture. 

These two started out so shy – like, in-the-folds-of-mommy’s-skirt shy.  By the end of my week’s visit, they were warm and demonstrative, and proudly sported their dynamic personalities and hilarious little attitudes.

The day before I left, Maya, alone with me for a few minutes while waiting for the others, turned and looked at me thoughtfully, and with hand motions that reminded me of my own, said “tell me about your world.”

Tell me about your world. What almost-six-year-old says this? Not only is it outside of a five-year-old’s own world (and many simply don’t leave), but it was such a globally framed question that I immediately loved her for it. I think of this as maybe a glimpse of an old soul.

Last Sunday, I went to a beach club with some friends.  We lounged, they played volleyball, I soaked up the sun and a Primus.   A young girl kept coming by – a total ‘tude’ is the only way to describe her demeanor.  Hilarious and charming, but full of ‘tude.  She would come by with these extravagant and demonstrative gestures, seemingly order us around in half-french, half-something-else (Kirundi?  Swahili?), then run off laughing.  Or maybe stick around and sit down for a few minutes, trying to make herself understood with insistent but good-natured gestures.   My friend recognizes her from the university pool he occasionally visits.  She clearly recognizes him, and continues to come by and vie for his attention.  He said her name is Pamela.  Pamela easily finagles the last piece of his pizza, all of our popcorn, and my water bottle – and maybe a little of our hearts – over the course of several hours. 

I imagined her world.  I assumed she was with the Burundian family that was occupying the sofa area next to ours.  It was riddled with kids – the girls with long-braided hair (most girls seen walking along the roadways between Bujumbura and anywhere upcountry keep their hair very short), pool props like arm floaties and a blow-up tube, nice swimsuits and clothes, ordering pizzas and fantas and ice creams.  I imagine they belong to an upper middle class Burundian family – a very small percentage of the population here – enjoying a Sunday afternoon at the beach with some friends.  Pamela seemed to be mingling in and among them.  I didn’t twig on to how differently she was dressed and coiffed just yet. 

Throughout the day, she kept coming by – employing our table as her own, depositing her juice, her lollipop, her dress.  Wiggling a little dance to entertain us, ensuring we watched – and applauded – as she jumped in the pool.  She helped herself to a piece of African fabric I had with me – the beautiful painted prints worn by African women, known as a pagne – and wrapped it around herself as African women do, in expert fashion.  “Wow, she’s really got that down” noted my friend.  After a while, I realize she is not responding to French in the way a French-speaker would.  She’s throwing words around, but just words.  She would come up and quickly spout something indiscernible – I would ask “quoi?” (“what?”) and she would nod, wide-eyed, “oui!” and run away or jump in the pool.   Hmmmm.  Where has she learned these words?  my friend muses.  I’m now confused – an upper middle class family would have educated children, and that would mean French.  I also realize this family was now gone.  Had they move to another seat?  Down to the beach?

Sometime later in the afternoon, she picks up my iphone and adeptly works out the camera feature; she reaches for my camera and does the same – starts snapping photos and squealing in delight with each one, quickly showing us before the 3-second preview turns back to a lens.  Posing does not seem new to her.

After chancing our popcorn out of us, she scurries over to the group of people at the corner banquette.  She’s working them the same way.  We joke that she’s playing us against each other, creating a competition, hoping we’ll fight for her. 

The sun is now starting to set, and she’s back.  Wrapped in my pagne, she takes off her shorts and we realize she is now “washing” them out in the pool, wringing them as though she’s at the river, and then hanging them over the railing.  Ummmmm…  

She’s now cozying up to us, lounged across the sofa that I too am lounging on.  She picks up my arm and puts it around her, and snuggles in.  We smile at this, but just keep talking.  It’s like she belongs. 

We’ve had a few friends-by-extension come by to see what we’re up to for dinner, and we eventually formulate a plan.  We move to the covered area as we make our way to the car, and we chat with the club’s manager for quite some time.   I am leaning lazily against a pillar.  Suddenly Pamela is close by my side, tucked once again under my arm.  Someone asks where her family is – it becomes quickly clear that the manager had thought all day that she was with us.  She is here alone.  To my horror, with the snap of a finger, she is quickly escorted to the steps leading from the club’s platform down to the beach.  A conversation with a few of the waitstaff ensues, and suddenly, she is gone.

Her world is not at all as I had imagined it.  In fact, it was hard to imagine what her world was.  It was after dark – she was no more than ten.  Does she have a home?  Would she find her way?  I suppose she would find her way – Burundians are incredibly resourceful, and this was clearly not a new racket for her, but what dangers would await her along the way?  As she ran off, shoeless, I imagined this was a regular Sunday for her – hustling food and company from unsuspecting mzungos with her charm and vigor.  This eventually dissolved into my feeling pangs of sickness, heartbreak, helplessness.   

We went on to enjoy an excellent bottle of wine poolside at a lovely hotel under the stars.  But I have thought about Pamela all week, wandering somewhere, under those same stars.  I wonder if I’ll see her again.  I wonder what her days are like, who her family is and do they miss her when she’s gone all day, what her future could possibly hold.  

Will she be one of the incredibly admirable people I’ve met here who have created opportunity out of desperate circumstances, and insisted on a future they envisioned, even when it seemed impossible?  I recently had a conversation with someone who fled the war in the middle of a school day – alone.  He walked for days, being fed by generous countrymates along the way, and found his way to Tanzania.  He spent three years in a refugee camp.  He said it was awful.  He was a teenager and he was alone.  But he stayed.  Why?  Because they offered school.  I’m wide-eyed with awe and admiration.  He is now university educated with a career, a family, a future.   I imagine – in fact see – that this is not the norm.  The long and dark war ravaged the country and many along with it.  People were robbed not only of land, family members, possessions, dignity, but also of spirit.  Rebuilding is a slow and frustrating process.  People are left behind.  People fall through the cracks.  People don’t have opportunities.  If mine weren’t presented to me, I wonder very much if I would have created my own.  I find myself making this comparison often here and being embarrassed by what I believe to be the truth.

I wasn’t planning on tying this particular entry back to VHW, but I can’t help myself, because the segue is now so obvious.  The co-ops that VHW helps to organize and support are just these kinds of opportunities.  People in the rural mountainous catchment area – mostly women – who have had no education and a complete lack of opportunity, are now business owners, tradespeople, respected members of their communities.  This is just some of the great work of VHW. 

me on the Kigutu road with the yoga bags

I visited the sewing co-op again this week and greeted the lovely people who make the yoga mat bags that I’m now peddling at my Saturday morning yoga group.  They were busily filling an order of 100 bags placed by our New York office, to send home with some US visitors returning next week.  I take seven on consignment; I sold three last weekend and intend to top that tomorrow.  I eyeball one for myself – it has a non-descript bird motif (quail? pheasant?  wild turkey?  stunted peacock?) in gold and cobalt, with a sort of vegas-meets-versace flash – I imagine the non-descript bird as a glittering medallion on a giant gold chain around a rapper’s neck.  I decide my world needs this irony.

My world.  My world is my own.  My world is free to acquire things, take trips, make choices. My world is free to write and speculate about the world of others.   My world is whatever I want it to be.  But tell me about your world, Pamela.  Tell me about its hardships and challenges and heartaches.  Tell me your hopes and dreams and what you want to be when you grow up.  It’s with ruefulness that I resign myself to the fact that I will simply never know, and it’s with melancholy that I consider that her world may simply be survival, and that dreaming about what she wants to be when she grows up, may be to her, just completely another world.