DoDo

Dorris is one of my favourite people in the world. To remind you, she is the two year old daughter to Katalausha and Lidia, and is more commonly referred to as DoDo [pronounced dough-dough or doe-doe].

We first bonded over the simplest game ever: we both were wearing clothes with hoods, and I would imitate her in regards to having her hood on or off her head. That simple little game endeared us fiercely to one another. She refers to me as Uncle, [one of the few audible words she can speak, and one of the even fewer ones that are in English]. From the moment I arrive home after knocking off [which is what they call leaving work here in Zambia] she is shouting “UNCLE!” unless I am paying attention to her.
Kids are like rubber, and so one of DoDo’s favourite games is to have me toss her around the big comfy couches. Grabbing her by the legs and flipping her over her onto her stomach or back. Or simply picking her up and tossing her up into the air and catching her. She laughs and giggles like a crazy person. In between flipping her around, I tickle her. And she giggles in the way only a child can which makes me totally loose control and giggle likewise. Seriously, I can’t not giggle like a 2 year old when she is giggling.

She also likes to play games where we scare each other. She will hide around the corner and poke her head out at me and squeal and giggle because she sees me. Or I will come around the corner and grab her. Or she will simply crouch behind the armrest of the coach and I will lunch my arm over and tickle her… and she giggles and giggles.

She really likes my iPod, she loves music just like her father [foreshadowing of a blog to come]. And she loves to dance, moving her clumsy two year old body in her best imitation of the older girls in the family. What I would give to know what is going through the mind of a two year old Zambian child’s mind as she listen to music on an iPod. I get up and dance with her, a headphone in each of ears playing a funky Modest Mouse song.

The trouble with having a two year old that fond of you is they boss you around! The number of times she has repeated “tia” [“come” in Tonga or Nyanja…. I’m not sure]. She yelled at me to pray one time before we had dinner because we hadn’t prayed yet, her little hands already clasped together, her eyes continually peaking up at me to make sure I am praying to while she mumbles a totally incoherent slew of syllables that is her prayer. After she gets worn out a bit she will pat the couch and say “beppi” which means “sit” but she has confused to for “sleep”. Apparently DoDo likes to get up out of bed at night, so Katalausha and Lidia will blow out their candle and make noises which DoDo knows are coming from her parents but she plays to be scared and runs back into the safety of their bed. They explained this to me one time after DoDo had said “beppi” till I lay down on the couch beside her, and then began making funny hushing noises… she was imitating what her parents do to scare her into bed to play scare me to go to sleep also.

DoDo is the most wonderful child I know. The apple of my heart. The kind of child you can see the light that sustains the world in her gleaming eyes. But suddenly I am scared by a nagging question… will she be able to go to school? Of course the intention is that she will, but maybe there will be two many funerals within the family, which are an enormous financial burden, and they won’t be able to afford it. I know adult Zambians who haven’t done passed grade 7 because of this, and I’ve listen to how they struggle to overcome that limitation. Can you imagine being a grown up and having to go back to do grade 8 through 12? And this is the Southern Province, with an HIV rate of 18% or almost 1 in 5, which means plenty of funerals. I often see big trucks, that would normally be hauling gravel or some other material in Canada, which are filled with people, and when I ask people around me what they are doing the tell me it’s a funeral.

I fall asleep at night, snug under a couple warm blankets [the nights in Livingstone are cold] and a mosquito net, with my little bundle of non-work clothes wrapped in my hoodie for a pillow, cosy in the naïve self delusion that it couldn’t happen to her. That it couldn’t happen to my DoDo…
…still…
…but at least that delusion means I can sleep at night.