Denmisenw/ Kids

Denmisenw means kids or children in Dioulla and it's a word I use a lot as pretty much everyone has at least 5 in Burkina.  Kids here have blown my good moods to smithereens plenty of times and have made my day just as many.  They have the luck here to have a whole village in which to run amuck, a village full of mango trees to climb, crumbly mud brick walls warm from the sun to scale, lizards to catch, animals to chase with sticks and roars, other hooligan kids to wreak havoc with, and, lucky for the kids in my village, a toubab to watch and pester at their leisure.  They have the unforunate luck of getting the last pick of meat, the worst hand-me-downs, the fewest baths, the most wacks across the butt with skinny stinging switches, and a disproportianate share of the most grueling housework.

They are shockingly obedient to their parents and their teachers, as they know the serious consequences of anything but perfect behaviour. They tie their baby brother's and sister's on their backs and go mango hunting while mom pounds the corn to make flour for 'to', and dad fixes shoes, drinks tea, or wanders unhelpfully through village.  They steal from each other greedily and give selflessly in a ten minute span.  They play dress-up with rice-sacks, tumble and wrestle in sandpiles, braid each other's hair, make bizarre rhythyms with recycled instruments, help the toubab with her 6th and still pitifull garden, ride bikes 10 times too big for them, collect bottle caps and make games with them, create cars with boxes and card board wheels, and generally look for anything at all to do.

They are usually totally gross with all this fun, full of sand and dirt and snotty noses and sticky mango finger and gaping holes in their clothes until their mom finally dumps  a bucket of water on them and scrubs it all away. They tranform for holidays and weddings into little adults, in matching out fits with their brothers and sisters, shiny with shea butter on their skin, eyebrows drawn in arching lines that sometimes make them look angry or surprised, much to my amusement.  They are darling devils!

you can see my pictures of some of my favorite kids at  https://picasaweb.google.com/102639843968564284925/DenmisenwKids