welcome to the western highlands

I've been hanging out on the front stoop of my little concrete house in Kipsamoite, watching the livestock brave the absurdly pouring rains. Rains mixed with knuckle-sized hailstones which, perhaps due the (literally) religiously enforced alcohol ban, I can't help think would look really nice with a martini poured liberally overtop.

Usually accompanying me as I wait for the rains to cease are a variety of pint-sized street urchins. Think of "urchin" in the most Dickensian mold you can imagine. No shoes, filthy, ripped clothing, wide-eyes. When I write this there are six of them. I made the grave mistake of talking to one of the little urchins my first day here, and he, encouraged, returned faithfully each day with ever increasing numbers of comrades.

The little street-kids are ostensibly here to mind their cows. The cows graze dejectedly in the pasture in front of my house, the hailstones pinging off their soggy hides. Some have abandoned even the pretense of grazing during the downpour and instead stand forlornly, their heads drooped. I feel sorry for them.

The urchins like to stroke my hair. They have none, as if every one of them suffered from leukemia. They have no arm hair either and so they like to touch mine. Only the boy I met originally speaks any English. He uses this skill to ask, periodically, for money.

My second grave error was to allow the English-speaking scamp and his toddling little brother (who I am told thinks that I, as a white man, may eat him at any time) to enter my concrete home on the second day they visited me. They rummaged through everything I owned, touching, pressing, manipulating, and generally making me anxious and irritable. They particularly liked my flashlight. I am not clear what the attraction was, since many people in the highlands own flashlights and mine was not a particularly paramount example, but nevertheless they fought over which one of them could aggressively turn it on and off or drop it the hardest.

Now that the numbers of urchins are increasing like bacteria, I am determined not to let any of them into my moderately clean home. If I leave them alone on the stoop, however, I will eventually hear the door slowly creak open and see a mud-daubed, curious face peer around the corner, perhaps to see if I am currently turning my flashlight on and off. So I stand out on the stoop, writing, and watching the rain pour, accompanied by the little rascals.