Day 16: Oh to have the heart of a child.

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9:15 p.m.

The morning was chilly and beautiful. The sun doesn’t take days off here. Not even periodically. It’s loyal to its South Africans, and we reap those benefits.

We met, four of us, outside the house of our coordinator and waited for our taxi bus to pick us up and take us to our destination. I was to be accompanied all day by Matt, Carmen and Dani.

Sleepily we entered the bus when it arrived, with morning stiffness in my joints. We sat, mostly quietly, save for a few words about nothing really. We drove through town, past neighborhoods of all calibers – grandiose houses with balconies wrapped around, one bedroom brick boxes with small yards in the back, and tin shacks by the hundreds lined only feet apart.

We entered the township called Mamelodi, where children of all ages everywhere, in different uniforms, walked their morning routine trek to school in bunches. Babies held the hands of their older guides. Girls chatted with eager gestures. Young boys ran to see who could be first. Others marched diligently onward.
I watched them all through the window and wished silently that they were coming to my classroom. (I want so badly to be a teacher).


We winded through the streets of Mamelodi, through neighborhoods and busy roads. We pulled into a suburban area, where the schools were located. The children were playing outside in the schoolyard, not yet ready to take their classroom seats. We drove past an elementary school, where tiny children were playing with one another, and Matt and I hoped that was our destination.

I literally couldn’t suppress a squeal of joy when we pulled into that very elementary school. My moments of giddiness – real giddiness – are few and far between. But children evoke the child in me, and I let a squeal fly out of my mouth like a trapped bird set free.

The road became dirt as we drove up to the school.

Tiny happy hands greeted us as we stepped out of the bus. We were the instant spectacle of these precious, tiny people. With sideways smiles and bashful eyes, they each waved at us as they saw us. There were tons of them swimming around the school yard like excited tadpoles. From four years old to fourteen, beautiful children clad in black and green uniforms looked upon us and sent bashful or bold greetings our way. From yards away, children stopped to watch our every move with curious smiles displayed on their faces.

We had been informed to look for Mr. T. Mr. T would tell us where to go and what to do. But only children surrounded us. We walked through the main entrance into the courtyard, surrounded by classrooms. Children were running, shouting, leaping, laughing all around us.

I walked toward a patch of little boys, no older than second grade. And I bent down to tell them hello and if they knew where Mr. T was. They didn’t hear a word I said, even though they had gathered right up to my face so that precious big brown eyes stared at me like I was a talking animal. They hugged me. They held out their hands to shake my hands – all four or five at the same time.

“Hi! Do you know where Mr. T is?”

They spoke in some other tongue with one another, and reached out to touch me.

Oh dear God, my heart was about to burst. I fell so in love so instantly!

I ignored the question of where Mr. T was and proceeded to make tiny new friends. We shared a mutual fascination with each other. It was glorious.


Eventually, we found Mr. T, who showed us our project. He took us to the seventh grade classroom and instructed us on what painting needed to be done in it. Seven or eight of the seventh grade students had come to have a hand in the painting of their classroom.

The first coat had already been done; we were instructed to do only touchups.

While we painted, we made friends.
Rendy was my instant companion. She had a beautiful complexion and a becoming confidence. She had an adorable smile of straight white teeth. And she had a sweet voice.

We took an hour to finish painting. Matt, Carmen, Dani and I painted our hands and stamped them on the wall. Some of the children began painting a cloud and a sun.

Rendy spent fifteen minutes cleaning the paint off of each of my hands with a paint-stroked cloth and turpentine. We got to know each other in the meantime. She’s twelve. She’s an only child, so she gets whatever she wants. She doesn’t want any siblings, because then her parents would have to ask them what they want. And she definitely doesn’t want a sister, because that would be boring. Her favorite subject is math, but she’s “clever in English, too.” Rendy wants to be a doctor, and she forgot the name of the university she wants to attend. She’s sweet-natured and caring, asking me if her rubbing hurts. And she doesn’t leave a single spot of paint on my hands or forearms.

She shows me where the faucet is outside, where we can wash our hands. She, Bethaline and I make our way to the other side of the schoolyard. The maintenance man meets us, clad in a huge gap-toothed smile and blue uniform. His English is broken, but his grin is enough to understand that this man is too sweet. He exerts kindness and good-heartedness. He tells us to wait so he can bring the soap.

Only minutes later he comes whistling toward us with a bucket of powdery soap. He shows us how to take it out, rub our hands and wash it off. And when we finish, we thank him dearly, and he smiles and sings himself off to his next task.

Rendy asks me my name again, and I tell her. She decides instantly that she won’t remember it, so I tell her she can just call me B. But she declines and tells me that she’ll just call me Mommy. And she does, and I don’t mind. In fact, I love it.

We don’t want to do the painting anymore. We want to play with kids. We sit outside on the porch, beneath the morning sun. Rendy plays with my hair and gives me a fabulous braided doo, and then she moves on to Carmen, who also receives a fabulous doo.

Younger kids are playing in the courtyard, waving to us and running around. I can’t take it anymore, so I go, bringing gifts of photography, to the kids. I show them my camera, show them what it can do, show them their faces on my screen, and they suddenly can’t get enough. We take pictures together, they ask for picture upon picture upon picture of themselves. They hug me, they high-five me, they hold my hand.


Our seventh grade friends are equally fascinated by the camera. They take turns taking pictures after my detailed tutorial on how to do so. They ask to take pictures with everyone around them, and then they ask to see the result. They jump on every opportunity to take our pictures – and several mistakes or duds later, they do.

Our seventh grade friends take us around the campus and into the computer lab. Rendy leads me to a computer and sits next to me, and she tells me what games I should play. We sit for a while, playing games, comparing scores, laughing. We’re just being kids.


And then lunchtime comes.

Which means the kids come out of their rooms.

I love every child that I see. They think we are the weirdest, greatest, strangest, coolest things they’ve ever seen. From far away and from up close, they watch us and observe what we do and say. They don’t know what to do with themselves but display a huge smile and wave when we wave first at them. They are too good to be true.

And they all love a camera.

We sit on the ledge of the garden, overlooking the front schoolyard. The kids all around are eating their lunches or playing and running around.

A group of little girls and a few little boys nab my attention by giggling and trying to tell me something in a different language. What they want to say is that these two boys want to show me how they can dance. So I urge them to dance – but not until I set up my camera to record it.

On my cue, camera ready, they begin their quick-step tango – beautifully executed. The other children and I cheer them on, while they perform for us twice in a row. They laugh at the video, all ten heads crowded round to watch it. And then they all demand that their pictures be taken.

I am their photographer. I take pictures of their beautiful, shining, beaming, mischievous or shy faces. I tell them to smile, I tell them to give me their funniest face, and I tell them to just do whatever.

I take individual pictures with the sweet ones too bashful to demand. And when I request a photo with some of them, ten more of them jump in.

I tell them to line up, as straight as can be, and they are like soldiers. One dominant boy finds his spot in the front and shoves the others into the line, demanding that they make it straight. Frenziedly the kids find a spot in the line as I watch bemusedly. When they’ve created a line, facing me at the head, I tell them to turn shoulder to shoulder. They’re quiet as circumstances permit, and I tell them that I’m going to take pictures of them but that they have to give me their BEST, PRETTIEST SMILE EVER.

So I take my camera down the line and I call for their BEST, PRETTIEST SMILE EVER, four at a time. And then I commend them on their beauty as I pass. Once their photo is taken, they jump out of line and back into line at the back. Their hands are everywhere – an attempt to get just one part of themselves in the camera. Two tiny ones at the very end are too precious to not give extra attention. I bend down to them and shake each of their baby hands. And I tell everyone to let them have their own picture. Dear lord, I am in love.

I put my camera away and go down to sit at the ledge. A herd of children follows me. They are surrounding me. The two littlest ones, whose hands I held on the way to my perch, are in my arms and on my lap. Other little girls hold onto my arm. Everyone else stands around me to look at me with eager and fascinated eyes. I ask them their names and do my best to pronounce them. They are proud when I ask them each individually. Their hands reach out to touch me – especially my hair. One pats and rubs my head, and another one follows. Several, in turn, pat my head. One boy remains at my side, stroking my pony tail. I laugh and ask him if he likes my hair, and he responds very deliberately that he does.

I turn my attention to the little ones, who don’t say much, but have a look of adoration and admiration in their sweet faces. I hold up four fingers and ask them each in turn if they are four years old. They hold up four fingers and nod shyly with little smiles twisting the corners of their mouths. Another little one makes her way to the center, and she too is four. I hug them all, love them all, want to keep them all forever.

When lunchtime ends, our seventh grade guides take us to get some ice cream. To the right of the schoolyard, small vendors have been set up, selling sweets and snacks for one or two rand.

For the rest of the day we meander around, finding little jobs to do.

We go to the library and meet the Masters students from Rutger’s College in New Jersey. But we found them boring; they weren’t doing anything. So we parted ways and went outside to find warmth and more children. Matt and I decided that we would keep every one of them, that we absolutely adore children, and that we want to adopt tons of our own.

He and I clean paint off the supplies reluctantly. But we ditch it after a short time and go on a mission to find kids to play with. So we go and sit in the courtyard, where kids are beginning to filter out of their rooms. Sure enough, they come. They come waving, they come laughing, they come just to tell us hello or good-bye. They come to shake Matt’s hand. They come just to catch our eye.

Carmen and Dani join us on our step as we sit and watch the kids. One boy comes to us and, in a heavy accent, says he wants to play a game with us. It’s called “And Then.” So we play “And Then” for two rounds – each person says a part of the story, “and then…”, and then the next person builds onto that. We had our laughs, and we discovered that we were terrible at the game.

We eventually make our way to the front schoolyard, where more children stand around in wait for their transportation or time to go. A group of little girls dances for us and a wider audience. Other girls come randomly to hug me. Rendy finds me again to give me a warm and sad hug good-bye.

We leave them, though, with promises that we’ll come back soon.


And we will. Because now I’m attached.