My first African date

There were a lot of things working in my favor this Thursday. It had just rained, I had just had my hair braided, she had just celebrated her second birthday. Ma is my friend's daughter and among many other things, is deathly afraid of me. Our first few meetings she screamed and shook in terror. Not to toot my own horn, but I'm pretty good with kids, even in Africa, but she apparently thinks I look different from all the Africans... weird. After going to my friend's house everyday for about 3 weeks now, she still refuses to be left alone with me even for the shortest amount of time, let alone sit next to me. Everyday around 5 I walk from my friend's house across the village to my homologue's house and back to say hi and get my dinner, and everyday Ma's mom jokes that she should go with me, each time responded with a firm, "No" with an underlining "I don't think so". But today, on her birthday, she said yes. It was too quiet for me to hear and I didn't take my friend seriously, but when Ma held my hand without crying I didn't want to ruin my chance. It had all the insecurities of a first date. I showed her around my part of town, everyone commented on my new "friend", of course I did most of the talking as my palms started to sweat. I didn't want anything to upset her so I tried to avoid most things that wouldn't normally bother me but today seemed deadly, an over excited dog, hassling children, the crazy old lady. When we got to my homologue's house I wanted Ma to make a good impression on them. She's so damn cute! But of course she was too afraid to say anything. I knew when my homologues said, "Maybe next time don't bring her, she's about to cry," that maybe this was too much for a first date. On the way back things started to look up. The sunset was fantastic beyond the mango trees and rain clouds. Ma held my hand tighter and even took the lead for a little bit. When we finally got back to her house I was trying to think of where our next "date" would be as the fear spell seemed to have been broken, but just then as I asked her to sit by me, I heard the familiar wined up and the overly surpressed bawl. Damn it, But it went so well! "It's ok," I tried to tell her, "I get that a lot." So I guess she's not ready, maybe she won't ever be ready, but we'll always have that first date, our stroll through the mango grove.