Triumph!

Be it known that today, July 16th, I officially triumphed over the neighborhood children's doubts -- 

we're officially buddies now. 

It began when Amadou came to get me, and I walked out to little voices yelling "Mooolly." Amadou couldn't stop laughing. I was proud of myself; I'm finally moving past toubabou.

Then a tiny girl (maybe two at the most) ran up to the motorcycle when Amadou was dropping me off after lunch and basically tried to climb on. So Amadou stopped and she grabbed my hand and clearly wanted me to pick her up. Obviously, I can't do that, so I went home. But then I came back to visit the kids. So it all started with me helping some of them to cook (cut up leaves and egg shells and sand and water, duh). There were races (and thank you very much, I can still run faster than almost all of the kids). There was a lot of tickling on all sides (these guys realized right away that they could tickle me back though, so props to them).

Then I got my camera so we could all take pictures ...

 

It was extra fun because the teenagers clearly wanted to talk to me too, but were too shy at first. Once I was out playing with the younger kids, it gave them a chance too. They wanted to speak English with me, so we did that a bit. Everyone is always curious about my hair (and I don't care), so I let them touch it. I told them that their hair is fun because they can do neat braids and stuff, and my hair won't do that.  Then two of them even braided my hair (I need to up my skills), but it still doesn't look as cool as everything people can do with their hair here. I think the braids and designs are so much prettier than the weaves people like to wear, but Amadou says that women love to copy women in Mali and Senegal, and "les meches" have always been a big thing. Hair is a big deal here, but the story of Africans and hair culture is a long one (as my friend Beatrice and her sister once spent a night explaining to me ...).

Papi was not amused.

This is one of my best buddies. I let her play with the camera, which is how we have all of these pictures of me looking like a sweaty hot mess (did I mention it's really hot in Africa?).

The little girl in the front on the left is Grace, my little buddy with the attitude. You should be able to tell who it is, since she's giving her best death stare to the camera-woman. The little girl I'm holding is the one who tried to climb onto the motorcycle with me.

I can't even tell you how happy it made me that they aren't afraid of me anymore. 

Seriously, best. day. EVER.