She is two years-old. She loves eating powdered milk right out of the package and peanuts. She likes to fly. If you tell her to spit when she is crying, as soon as you take the "spit" and throw it away she will stop fussing. Whenever I come over, she is reminded of the white people in her life; if my teammate is ever gone, she demands where he is. "Man Ali go?" I usually have to say he is coming, even if he isn't coming for another few days. She is now the owner of a fluffy stuffed-animal cat who she thinks is real.
She is known to sing about how camels move (they go "taley-taley") and screams out "walia! walia!" every time a heron-like bird flies over. When a garibou beggar-child comes to the door she yells out the blessing "Irkoy ma doonandi" (May God get you used to it--really, this is what you say to people who beg. It's like they pity your suffering but know there is little they can do to help. We all got problems).
When she became a big sister, she ran to greet her mother, just coming back from the hospital. "Eh, mother, what's this? My little brother, or what?" She incredibly observant for her age, saying things like, "Mother, your breast is gross." (The new mom has an infection sadly and I hope her husband can get a goat to supplement her lack of breast milk). Or when she picks up the bottle of baby powder, she exclaims "Look mom, there are children like me!" (French baby powder, so I chuckled that the kids were white, but maybe kids here are metaphorically color blind?)
Clearly, she loves the "baby" act now that she has to be the big sister. Often she'll just cry and cry until she gets what she wants. Nice cultural exchange when I tried to explain the phrase "terrible twos" in Sonrai.
Basically I am thankful to have this little doll of a two year-old in my life, and I so wish my teammate or me could actually take her back to the states like they all hope we will.
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