Neighborhood kids

We’ve been in the house for a week now (as of Saturday), and it feels like longer. We were talking last night about how we feel very comfortable here now. Getting to know the neighbors has been a big help, and for me it’s been a big improvement that I don’t have kids banging on the door yelling “faranji! Cora! Cora!” all day long.

I don’t know if our newness has worn off, or it helps that the neighbors and random adult passers-by occasionally yell at the most annoying of the kids (the ones who unlock the gate with sticks from the outside and come right into our courtyard without permission), or if they actually believe me now that when the gate is closed and locked it means Cora is either sleeping or eating and we’ll come out to play when she’s ready, or if the giant rock I now put behind the locked gate sent the right message … but whatever the reason, things have been a lot more peaceful for the past four days or so.

An old photo of Cora napping at our pension hotel room

When we do go out to the street, all we have to do is sit on our “stoop” (a low rock wall that runs outside our real metal fence) for about 2 minutes and Cora’s friends will show up to play. We usually bring one of her soccer balls out so she can throw and kick it with the kids, or to distract the kids if it’s a particularly large crowd and Cora gets overwhelmed.

Her regular playmates are Aminay (I mistakenly called him “Alemahu” in a previous post) and his older brother, Osama. They are a Muslim family that live a few doors down, and their mother runs a tiny house wares shop out front where Nate bought Cora’s baby toilet seat. Our direct neighbors, the kids of Gannett, also come visit sometimes. They are the most polite of the kids and don’t tend to hang out with the roving packs of kids that inhabit the streets during the day.

[Notes on the video above:
1. Cora loves sheep. A lot.
2. That little boy in the red shirt is Aminay.
3. In the sunshine you can see red henna in Cora's hair]

On school days, we get visits from the kids who attend Adventist school. They stop in at our door at 8am or so on their way to school, during their lunch break at 12:30-1:30, and on their way home at 3:30 or 4. At first we’d get large groups of them that would bang on the door and sneak in, but now we only the select few who really love Cora and tend to be more respectful of our space. I haven’t gotten all their names straight yet.

 Yesterday some of the boys discovered Nate's Oromiya/English workbooks, and that was a big hit. They seem to be hungry for English, so we trade Oromo words for English ones all day long.