Wait- Make That Nine

We are dorm parents, and we had our ten 10 year old boys come this week. There are four Koreans, one Indian, one national, and three Americans, although two of the Americans have spent more time in Africa than America. The first night was rather traumatic; lots of tears and lots of trying not to have tears, because ten-year-old boys don’t cry no matter what nationality they are.

The differences between nationality in ten year old boys are this: they all list pizza as their favorite food, but the Koreans like pizza and noodles. Otherwise, there seems to be universality to 10 year olds. Much of it centers on gas. Ten-year-old boys, when they are in a group, talk about gas in a way that no other age group does. They take gas seriously: a discussion on Thursday involved whether if they hooked tubes to their bottoms and connected it to the stove, could you cook with it? This was not a discussion to provoke mirth; it was serious. A passing discussion later asked the question: `Is it true that the first time you kiss a girl you go home and throw up?’ One response that I heard was `I don’t know if you have to, but I know that I’m gonna.’ Again, this was not said to be funny.

This school is boy heaven; they live across the street from the school, a huge playground and the soccer field. There are lots of trees to climb, and all your pals live within five minutes. But it means being separated from your parents, and that is tough. One guy cried in our bedroom for two hours, and most of it was because he felt like this was not a way for a big guy to act. We are constantly telling them it’s OK to be sad, but how many ways can you prove you are tough when you are ten than by not crying? They all seem to being doing better, except for:

Our tenth guy, Andrew, came to school on Monday. He was not feeling good, so he was taken to the doctor. After five minutes, the doctor said `we are going to remove the appendix today.’ Whenever you feel like you’ve been given a tough break, think about this 10 year old from North Carolina who is going to be away from his folks for the first time, which is tough enough, but to have your appendix removed in an African hospital. He was brave, and he is doing fine, but visiting him at the hospital was sobering.

The doctor was great; he is a professor at Stanford and a world-renowned surgeon. But the hospital is shocking to a westerner. The floors were filthy, and the smell horrible. While I was visiting him, he was given water in a glass that had pink medicine on its outside. I don’t understand why it is like this, but I am assured by many that this is one of the finest hospitals in Africa.

Andrew has tested out of fifth grade, so he has moved to the sixth grade dorm. That leaves us nine, but we have not experienced a drop off in noise at this point. On Saturday, we had a baboon walk across our front porch and look in our garbage can. I’m not sure this was as alarming as hosting an ice cream party for all the fifth grade boys later that night and having the power go off. Power outages are a fact of life here, but it is a different thing to have power off with that many 10 year olds. We survived, but I’ll take my chances with the baboon next time.

Happy Labor Day!

YOP

Steve