A Children's Riot and a Chin Whisker

Today, I plucked a whisker off of my chin. This inevitable, unspeakable incident tells me two things:
1. That I’m getting older.
2. That I am, in fact, a Castleberry, completely ruling out the possibility that I was adopted.


A Children’s Riot
This story ends with water bottles being thrown through my open windows, followed by big arm gestures and yelling.

Rewind to 30 minutes to the beginning: I had just returned to my house from a trip into town to check my PO Box. I was pleased to find that I had two packages from the best of friends back home. I took my time opening the packages, inspecting and stowing away each item with the care you would give to gold bricks and fine diamonds. Because that is exactly what drink mixes, ramen noodles, and packaged tuna are…priceless treasures. As I was putting away the drink mixes, I realized that I had about a zillion individual mixes for water bottles (this made me realize that I don’t drink enough water). I decided to do a good deed, and give some of these to the little kids around my house. I peered outside, and there were only 3 or 4 loitering outside of my door at the moment. Perfect. I opened my door, and explained that if they would bring me an empty water bottle, I would fill it with “soda”. It took them a while to figure it out, but eventually they caught on. So, I filled the water bottles with Wild Raspberry Crystal Lite and Strawberry Daiquiri flavored packets. The kids thought that this was fantastic, and so did I. I enjoyed giving things to the little kids and enjoyed seeing their little juice stained smiles ask for seconds. While I was explaining that you only get one per person, a few more kids came up with extra large water bottles. “They’re catching on”, I thought to myself. So, I gave those kids some “soda” too. Before I knew it, there were about 20 kids outside all holding water bottles and yelling things in the local language that I haven’t learned yet. Some were coming back for seconds telling me that they had not had any yet. Confused by which kids I had served, and which I hadn’t, I decided to close up shop. I announced in slow spoken Ugandan English that “the soda is finished”, and immediately turned around and closed the door…but I wasn’t quick enough. One kid had wedged himself in the door so that it wouldn’t close. He was looking at me with wide eyes and was holding out an empty water bottle to me, saying something I couldn’t understand. I had to brace the door with my leg, as I pushed him outside by the forehead, while simultaneously repeating in escalation, “tis finished!” The electricity was out, so all of my windows were open for light. I sat back on my couch, exhausted at the strength it took to shut my big metal door on about 8 little kids who were trying to push it back open. Then my phone rang. It was another volunteer calling to chat. The whole time he was talking, I was staring at all the new faces appearing in my windows. The child mob grew louder and louder. Thy started knocking on my door and didn’t stop. Then they all started sticking their arms through the windows shaking the water bottles at me, as if that would compel me to give them what they wanted. Bottles started coming through my windows at rapid speed and force. I’d had enough. I ended the phone conversation I wasn’t paying attention to by saying I had to go put a stop to a children’s riot developing outside my door. I hung up, put on my meanest face, and went outside. I forcefully yelled at the kids in the local language and told them “Mugende” (go away). “Hati” (now). “Ninza kukuteera if you don’t mugende” (I’m going to beat you if you don’t go away”. They seemed to get the picture when I started pushing them away. The actual physical contact with a muzungu seemed to terrify them. I’ll have to remember this in the future. They seemed to disperse, but a few stuck around hoping they would finally get what they wanted. They were wrong. I closed my door, sat on my couch, took a deep breath, and then exfoliated my feet with a new peppermint foot scrub I received in one of my new packages.