Kids being kids

Kids being kids and parents being parents in Zanzibar are wholly different things from their American counterparts in the States. I just watched one boy with Down syndrome playing with other kids in the street by pushing a large work cart and letting the other kids climb in for a ride. I saw a baby - between one and two years old, I'd guess - toddle toward the cart excitedly from the front. The front is, of course, the blind spot for someone pushing a large cart from behind. I dashed to the front of the cart as the baby was toppled over, but did not start pushing the cart backwards soon enough to keep one wheel from going over the baby's right leg. Pushing the
cart with my body, I reached below to pull the baby out from below, making sure
none of the cart's weight was still on him. The marks the wheels left on his right leg and the scratches on his left would have won any child I know in the States a week of intense coddling after their emergency room visit. Here, if the blood can be wiped away with relative ease, it's all good. No more attention is necessary.

The most interesting bit: the baby knows it. With his scrapes and bruises wiped off by his mom as though she were knocking bread crumbs off of him, he went running back to the cart, still wailing as loudly as when I first pulled him out from under the cart, but still wanting to play.

More on this later...