Of Books and Street Kids

If you read my blog you know.

I write about life in Congo, and I write about SHONA.

And that is all fine and good. After all i am living in Congo, and working with SHONA.

Except that it occurs to me that my friends usually blog about their families, and particularly their children.

I seem to blog with the same frequency and perhaps the same passion about the craftspeople I work with. It is true that our lives are intertwined. SHONA is a very personal project for me, much more than a job (Although unfortunately it pays much less than a job! At least in purely financial terms.)

And i like to imagine that someone out there finds these topics interesting.

But sometimes I need a break, in which I remember that this is not the only world out there, nor is my work here all that I am.

And so I sat down here to write a different sort of post today. A fellow blogger recently posted a review of the books she read in 2008. I thought i would steal her idea and do the same. Books are often my way of relaxing and transporting myself to another world (along with out ever growing dvd collection)

And then a fight broke out in the street below us. The street is full of street children who on a daily basis manage to be involved in a fight. But it rarely remains between the street kids. In this case I have no idea what started the fight. But i looked out the window to see a street kid take off running, chased by a teenager with a large rock in his hand. Another street kid fell to his knees wailing loudly (a common occurence) at which point an adult man picked him up, carried him to the other side of the street and began kicking and hitting him, and eventually picked him up and threw him. At that point another adult man came to argue with the first, telling him not to beat the kid. By now a whole crowd had developed with everyone shouting their opinion and the two adults fighting. The street kid remained wailing on the sidelines. Eventually the crowd calmed down, I don't know what the end result was, the crowd eventually dispersed, but I can still hear the street kid wailing as i write this.

and tomorrow there will be another similar incident, and tomorrow and tomorrow...

So as you can see, I have not written about the books that I read in 2008. The fight distracted me and my thoughts have yet to return. Indeed there is a much larger world out there, one which I sometimes desperately need to remember, but sometimes the world at my doorsteps is just too loud.