Kids

On Sunday, I went to mass with my host family. I spent the entire time trying my hardest not to laugh. In fact, through my efforts, I think Ive officially come up with a list of topics that can distract my thoughts from almost anything. Anyways, why I was laughing: At the beginning of mass, my host brother who was sitting next to me rested his head on my shoulder and within seconds, he fell asleep. It was cute. A few minutes later, I felt Julien's head slipping, but I assumed he'd do the typical head bob bit. Instead, he continued to slump over and almost fell out of his seat. Luckily, I caught him before his head hit the ground. He did not wake up during any of this. In the process of falling, the money he was going to give for offering fell out of his pocket which I eventually slipped back in for him. He had been super excited to give money to "senor Jesus" earlier in the day, its a shame he couldn't stay awake to do so. When we got home, he woke up and asked why we weren't at mass anymore. When he finally realized that he missed on giving money to "senor Jesus", he started to cry. For the remainder of the night, the house was filled with the screams as Julien threw a tantrum over the fact that he slept through offering.

Friday night was the birthday party for the favorite son, Yves. (Yves had actually turned three on Tuesday, but we could not celebrate his birthday then because it was a school night.) When it came time to light the candles, we gathered all the children around the table. We then lit the candles and started to sing happy birthday. Yves decided to sing along as well, despite the fact that it was his birthday. Before we got to the second "joyeuse anniversaire," one of the little girls standing around the table blew out the candles. Yves didn't really notice though because he was so wrapped up in singing happy birthday to himself. One of the adults standing around the table rushed to relight the cake before the song was over, while another held the little girl back. When we finished singing, everyone started to clap and Yves blew out his three birthday candles. We cut up the cake, distributed pieces-- it was delicious. For whatever reason, one of the families who attended the party had decided to bring a cake... another one on top of what we already had. And for whatever reason, my host famil decided not to light both cakes together. Therefore, we took candles the little girl and Yves had just blown out, stuck them in the second cake, lit the candles, and started to sing happy birthday again.

As the birthday party started to wind down, Yves came over to where was I reclining on the couch. He laid on top of me, resting his head on my chest. He then proceeded to give me a hug, look up at me and smile, then give me another hug, look up at me and smile again, and so forth. After a while, as if that took all the energy out of him, his eyelids started to grow heavy and he fell asleep on my chest. It was so cute I almost died.

Before I left for a weekend trip to Toubacouta a few weeks ago, I was at my host family's house packing. I had just gotten out of the shower and walked into my room. Julien stormed in and started to stomp on my feet. I said rather loudly, "what are you doing?" in French, which caused my host parents to scream from the living room, "what is he doing, what is he doing?" Julien then stopped, looked at me, then turned his head in the direction of his parents' voices and yelled back, "why are you hitting me? why are you hitting me? youre always hitting me with your hands! dorothy's hitting me!" I have never raise a hand to him before in my life.