by Crayor/Crayol/Clayor/Black Crayon, claire@trippingonwords.com
One of the things that stopped when Jonathan left Kenya last week was that the children stopped referring to me on occasion as "Mrs. Jonathan." Although I had thought for the majority of Jonathan's two month stay that this was merely a humorous way to keep "Black Crayon" here on her toes, it came out last week that some of them actually thought I was married to Jonathan.
The reason I was chosen Mrs. Jonathan, and not his other roommate "White Lola" (Lara), was because I wear a silver ring on my thumb. Last week, I finally cleared up the issue with one particular thirteen year old girl, who then began to spread the message to anyone else who was confused about my marital status. An hour after the incident, which in my mind was a delightfully hysterical misunderstanding as always, the same thirteen year old began crying about it all with me.
Specifically, we were walking to the field to play when she took my right hand, my left being already taken by the eight year old child named after a dictator who calls me Mom. As she explained that she was "feeling very sorry" for what she had said, she began crying. I was baffled, as usual, and for the next ten minutes tried to understand why the incident had made her so sad.
Yesterday, this same thirteen year old had another crying episode. Interestingly, it did not come when we buried the small hairless bird that had died by falling out of his nest, but when she lost one of our chapter books: Little House in the Big Woods. In the turn of events as she described them, it hardly sounded like her fault when she "did not meet" the book that someone else had absentmindedly left for her on her bed in the girls' dormitory. But she was mighty sad about it all. And so we tried to get her to stop crying, saying we didn't care, and that it was an accident, and that we were not angry at all, and that we were certainly not going to do anything mean to her.
It was a sad reminder moment of how strong the desire is on the part of the children to please us. Whatever our names are.
P.S.
As for people who are actually going to be married, I discovered from a brand new comment posted to a year old post (Day 83: Update on Marriages) some wonderful news!
Specifically, Belinda and James, two Australians I met on the Greece portion of our trip last year, *finally* got engaged. They did not, contrary to what I wanted, get engaged on the June 2006 ferry to Rhodes using the fake Tiffany ring I had bought off the black market in China. Instead, they waited for a more personal moment.
In their words:
Hi Clare, This is Belinda and James from Geelong, Australia. We meet you in Mykonos, getting on the ferry in the Greek Islands. Just letting you know that we are FINALLY getting married in September this year. James asked me to marry him in front of 1000 people at our church Chirstmas Carol Service. It was very romantic!!! The ring he picked out is gorgeous (not as nice as the Tiffany one you offered) but I absolutely love it!!!!
Congratulations we say!
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