Children

I seem to live in a sea of children; in our neighbourhood there seem to be loads of them all over the place and usually calling 'oporto' (white person) after me. It gets very tiresome - see blog about political correctness - and whenever I open the front gate they come rushing over in whatever state of dress/undress and ask for 'dirty'. This means the waste, rubbish, trash, garbage or whatever you want to call it: I pay them to take it away. I have no idea how I would get rid of it if they didn't take it. They are always very keen to earn money, of course, so it matters not one bit if I gave one of them 3 bags of 'dirty' 10 minutes ago, they will still come running asking for it as though I make an endless supply of rubbish. I have no idea what they do with the stuff I give them and, quite honestly, I don't want to know. They are all poor and live in very basic housing into which I have never ventured. Quite a lot of them have malnutrition as evinced by the gingery tinge to their hair and they are often completely naked but not always. One girl this afternoon was dressed up an a princess outfit. There are an awful lot of umbilical hernias here and I would like to know why. I have heard theories about low protein diets causing weak abdominal muscles and various other things, none of which is overly convincing I think. They show great ingenuity in creating toys for themselves: you see boys dragging along a tin can on a string, pretending it's a car and they make kites out of black bin liners attached to a piece of string. Also they do that thing I have only seen in Victorian children's books; they have an old wheel or tyre and run down the road pushing it along with a stick. I'm not sure I have explained that very well and it must have a name - hoop and stick maybe? - I know I never did it. They love playing football and usually have rubbish balls to do it with. When I was walking here this evening a boy was calling after me 'give me a ball' time and time again (please not being a word in their vocabulary) as though I had lots of them stashed about my person. In addition to asking for balls they ask outright for money and food -'oporto emadi' or 'white person feed me'. If they see you with anything, they want it. If you are drinking water from a bottle they will come up and ask for it, if you buy something at a roadside stall they stand beside you and expect to be given what you buy, or at the very least given the change. These are not children of famine or war. Quite a few of them look at me and burst into tears; they are frightened of white people as their families tell them if they don't behave a white person will come and take them/eat them/what you will. It's always good to be cast in the role of the villain. The organisation I am with tells us not to do anything to promote or condone child labour but the reality is that after school many of them walk around with a tray on their head, selling stuff and if we didn't buy from them their lives would be worse, not better. So that's the kids done and dusted.