A Change of Heart

For all its challenges and confusion, life can be a beautiful place. For all our best intentions there is no such thing as a charmed life, and if there is, I’m not convinced I would want one. Some of my most profound and cherished moments come quietly, once I’ve gotten used to some sad reality. It’s then that something ineffable happens; a change of heart.

Sometimes I still feel more qualified to be friends with children than with adults. I don’t know, they’re funny to me and usually a spot more sincere and kind and fun than their adult counterparts. I find it hard not to greet the children in the families I’m closest to here and probably end up learning more from them anyway.

I’ll give you a wa fila if you can figure out where I’m going with this.

Some kids are really reluctant to warm up to me. I’m this big, goofy, white, beast that for all they know (and possibly for all their parents tell them in jest), is some sort of white devil (i quensu orcha). I’m a wandering aberration of humanity to them and some kids just don’t like me. It’s funny to me most of the time and I just learn to accept it.

Recently, on my way back from market I spotted amongst the masses three little girls that I knew. They are nieces of my work associate and I see them quite often on visits to his home. They are all funny and fond of saying “ISA! SuguMo!” on market day, which basically means “bring me back a treat from market,” which I find hilarious and hard to pass up since I used to do the same thing. Remember mom? All it took was the rattling of the keys to prompt a “Mom. Where are you going? (out.) When will you be back? (soon.) Will you bring me a treat? (we’ll see.)” But I digress. Here were three little girls saying “Isa!” and holding out their hands to shake mine. Something was different though. Their youngest sister was holding out her hand too. This is the little girl who runs to her mother when I come around. She cries when I come near. She avoids me like some kind of i quensu orcha. But there she was. Suddenly she knew who I was. In that crowd of people I was her friend somehow, when for a year I had only been a plague.

I know the friendship of a toddler is not meant to be important to an adult but it was one of those magic moments. I had sort of accepted things as they were. She, hates, me. C’est la vie. But then something entirely intangible happened and she was my friend. This wasn’t just a market day special either. I’m part of her family now and I haven’t done but what I’ve been doing all along.

When does this change of heart happen? Is it while someone dreams or on a whim? because I sure didn’t introduce anything novel.

Tamba was two years old when I came to Missalabougou for training (last year). We were the first group of volunteers to be in that village and I suspect many of the children had never seen a white person, especially a two-year-old Tamba. Understandably he kept a cautious distance. He wasn’t scared or mean, he just knew his family and I was something else entirely. Then one day, after a few weeks living in the same home, I was standing near Tamba, talking to someone and he leaned up against me. Just like that. Suddenly I was part of the furniture. Suddenly I was one of the family that could be leaned on as he saw fit. He knew I wouldn’t knock the poor sod over. We were friends. We were family.

What happened Tamba?

There’s only one other thing I can compare it to.

You know I was a missionary in Nicaragua? The people there were so open and willing to talk and fight and laugh and love. We brought a message to the willing. Anyone who wanted some hope, something true, something more. Some were compelled but—let’s face it—some of what we brought was hard to digest after a lifetime thinking something else was true. They had to dissect it and understand it and as long as they were interested, we did that with them.

But I remember the first time it happened. For weeks it had been visits with fun and learning but also doubts and confusion and questions. It seemed like a match at times. VS! The great struggle. They were honest and they felt enough truth to not abandon the bits that were still hard to understand, but the bits were not going to be ignored. Then, one day we came over, and the ref rang the bell but somehow it wasn’t vs. anymore. We were two friends on a walk in the forest, admiring all the same things. I couldn’t believe it. Suddenly everything had changed and trust had replaced doubt. Hope had replaced fear. They knew if they leaned on what they had learned it wouldn’t knock them over.

I like the hope and the trust. These moments make all the others worth the struggle. There’s something intangible there that the heart seems to be fond of.