19.09.06 - 12:01

eleven. Two of the "malnourished bunch" were by the well as I was drawing water. They asked me something in Hassaniya I didn't understand, then Big Eyes asked to see my breasts. She pulled down her shirt to reveal her ten-year-old lack thereof. I declined their invitation somewhat harshly.

I brought a bucket of water back to the house and returned to the well to see the two girls running away. My remaining bucket of water held swirls of foam; there were scartch marks in the ground at its side. I went to the girls' house and told their mother in my pidgin Hassaniya "Children are problem. Girl put sand in water. Not good. Problem. Children are problem. I am not happy."

Big Eyes was on the scene and ready to implicate the other girl, Shaggy Hair, in the crime. "Where is she?" asked the mother and wadled off to find her.

Two more little girls (how many does this woman have?!?) came to the well to refill my bucket with a tiny well bucket. I left with my bucket only a quarter full, despite their protests. I was just... tired.

Big Eyes and Shaggy hair had already gotten their punishment: they are stuck there, in Kankossa, Mauritania for the rest of their lives. The thought is fatiguing. The girls, and all their siblings, are malnourished, even though their mother has the means to feed them better. Their mother just doesn't care. There is no discipline at all - the little bandits would getno more than an apathetic scolding. No wonder they all misbehaved!

And how horrible that sometimes prejudices can be valid - poor, dirty, hungry people could be im- or amoral. Not because they have to be, but because that's all they, in their miserable circumstances, were taught. I saw the chain of it stretched on to eternity. Parent to child to grandchild to...

The youngest child, the one who makes mewing noises instead of crying (perhaps he has Cri-du-chat syndrome?) was by the well. He's like a little old man, strange-faced. His neck is well-defined, his arms thin, this knees knobby and too large. His hair is thin, light, and brittle.

You'll find no optimism here. I can't get angry anymore, nor sad and teary-eyed. I'm just tired. Tired likethey are, maybe. But I get to leave.

previous - next