I'm dead-heading the petunias in my flowerbed-plucking spent blossoms from each plant and surreptitiously tossing them into my neighbor's yard-when I get the unnerving feeling that I'm being watched. I stop singing my a capella version of "Funky Town" and turn slowly around to see something that really frightens me.
A young boy on a bicycle stands holding the hand of his little sister, watching the funny man singing to himself.
This is ominous.
I learned to fear children when I lived in Kenya. One of the toughest things for an American to get used to there is the mind-numbing depth of poverty in the city. At the time I lived there, parts of Kenya had an AIDS infection rate of one in seven. (That number is substantially higher now.) One of the many consequences is that young children left without parents travel to larger towns and cities to seek their fortunes in huge numbers. As a result, cities like Nairobi have huge gangs of children roaming the street looking for food, money or-failing to find the first two-trouble. I discovered that these children are drawn to me like buzzards to a gut-wagon.
I was walking down River Road, a not-very-good section of Nairobi, one afternoon when I was approached by a particularly aggressive child beggar. If Charles Dickens were writing the story of my life, this would have been a hopeful little child, bright-eyed and noble. Unfortunately, Charles Dickens is not writing the story of my life, so this was a really obnoxious little punk.
"Money!" he demanded. "Give to me money!"
I'd like to tell you all the very good reasons I had for not giving this kid any money, but the biggest reason is that I made a snap judgment and I really didn't like him. If you're looking for a starving child to give money to, you're spoiled for choice in Africa. I knew instinctively that a better kid would come along any moment, so I told this one to go away.
"Beat it," I told him. "Ondoka!"-basically the same thing in Swahili. (My Swahili is limited, but right to the point.)
I tried to step around him and continue on my way, but this kid wasn't willing to give up so easily.
"Hapana!" he shouted, "Nipe pesa!" ("No way! Give me money!") At this, he started to shove his hands in my pockets.
"Weh!" I shouted, grabbing his hands and flinging them away, "Hakuna pesa- usi niguse!!" ("Hey! There is no money-keep your hands to yourself!")
The kid glared at me, really offended that this fat msungu wasn't willing to share the wealth. "Usi niguse," ("Do NOT touch me!") I repeated, then bowled my way past him and up the street.
It says a lot about this kid's grit and determination that he followed me for two blocks, poking me in the small of the back and making "boink, boink" sounds in Swahili.
Looking back, I can see how funny this was. Certainly, everyone on the street that day saw the humor in it. Unfortunately, at the time, it was incredibly annoying. (If you want to get a feel for this, ask a small child to follow you around poking you; he or she will be happy to do it.) I tried to ignore him and keep walking, but there are some things you just can't ignore.
The kid's big mistake was falling into a rhythm. "Boink," he went, "Boink-boink. Boink. Boink-boink. Boink. Boink-..."
It was as he lunged in for the second "boink" that I got him. I wheeled around and somehow managed to grab him by the wrist. Without thinking, I pulled him in close to me and swatted him really hard across the back of the head.
I don't know which of us was more surprised; we both just stared at each other for a second, wondering what to do next. At a loss for any better ideas, I smacked him again, then when neither of us came up with anything new, I gave him one more for good measure.
I feel guilty about how good it was to see this small child running away from me in terror.
Later that night, when a friend asked me over drinks what I had spent my day doing, I was able, for the only time in my life, to look guiltily at my shoes and mumble, "beating orphans... ."
So now, as I stand in my flowerbed in New Hampshire, being stared down by two small children, I know exactly what to do.
"Ondoka!" I shout at them, "Ondoka amanita kupika!" and watch them run away in terror.
