Awake

A Four Banana Night

Add "First Aid Kit" to my bag of tutoring supplies.

I arrived at the apartment earlier than my usual seven-ish arrival. An hour earlier to be exact. I had visions of arriving home around eight with two whole hours to work on web projects for friends. I climbed the stairs to the third floor apartment and rang the bell. I was greeted by approximately three of six children, the mother of those children, and where was Mahadho?¹ Oh yes, in the back; here she comes.

After greeting Famo and checking over her knee in a completely non-helpful way and after being given all of the donated food that they thought was weird or icky (a jar of pimentos, blueberry jam, multiple bags of Tim's Cascade Style potato chips) I was confronted with Isha, or rather Isha's foot. I've kept a supply of bandages in my bag for a while now, which means that every week a child or two comes to me with a cut, blister, or some other "owie" needing that all-important BandAid and more-important sympathy. But Isha's foot was a different matter all together. The cut was deep enough to bleed plenty (the dried blood around the wound testified to that). But it was too big for a regular BandAid and not deep enough for stitches. I asked if the alchohol and cotton I left for Famo's and Mahadho's infected ears was still around. "No," was their reply, "I'll be back in twenty minutes," was mine. And off to Rite-Aid I went, just across the street on the corner of Murray & Allen.

I returned twenty minutes later with extra-large BandAids, a firstaid tape dispenser, a bottle of hydrogen peroxide, and a small tube of Neosporin. Twenty minutes after I bandaged Isha, the tape started to fall off. (I can't imagine why. It's not like she attached her feet to big plastic cups with socks and started walking around on them as if on stilts. Oh wait. She did do that.) In any case, before I left I made sure the bandage was secure and wrapped and wrapped and wrapped with firstaid tape. I'm sure they lasted at least 45 minutes. I told them to call me if the cut got worse.

Mahadho and I did manage to work on calendar terms a bit. "Thank-you" to my new insurance agent for sending out the 2006 calendar of Scenic America. But really the theme of the night was the wedding videos sent from a Bantu group in Atlanta, Georgia. The dancing and music inspired even the smallest child in this tiny suburban ghetto apartment to shake her hips like I've never seen hips shaken before. The only way I can describe it is Electric-Hula-Belly Dancing. We watch these tapes almost every week but they finally decided that I should have a copy too and so they commissioned me to make three copies of the two VHS tapes, "One for me, (Teacher), one for Mahadho, and one for 'Mahadho mom sister'". I'll bring my VCR up north this weekend and use Seth's VCR to dub the copies. And laugh. A lot. I'm not sure how I would feel if my nieces learned to shake their hips like that.

Regarding Famo, I'm thinking crutches might help. So I broke out the Spanish-English Picture Dictionary and showed her what crutches were. She said, "Teacher, you get for me."

Finally, Mahadho's cell phone account needed tending. A fellow Bantu in Idaho had added a second line to his T-Mobile account and given it to Mahadho. For months her number has had an Idaho area code and we have been unable to change it, not having the account owner's last four SSN. Last week, I made it as clear as I could to Mahadho that we needed this information before continuing. And apparently the message got through. This week she had a 503 number. One problem: it was a number from McMinnville and long distance from Beaverton. So armed with the account owners last four SSN, I called T-Mobile (T-Mobile: "Who are you?" Me: "I'm the English-Speaker") to get her a local, really local number. I also sorted out the billing situation, took off a $10/month TXT-messaging add-on, and made sure a copy of the bill got sent to her address. And it worked. I actually got all of those things. Mahadho and Medina were thrilled.

As I rose to leave, Mahadho went for the bag of bananas on top of the fridge and pulled off four. Four bananas for teacher. A way of saying thanks and reciprocating for the bandaids and video tapes and the phone issue and perhaps the English lessons too. Usually I get two. But tonight was different. Tonight was a Four Banana Night.

So. Anyone know how to procure crutches?

¹Ok...Mahadho=Ruth.