Pangolin

We just came inside from an early morning rendezvous with a pangolin.

Apparently these rare creatures are known for their divining powers around here and in-between using him to predict the next rain shower, some local farmers brought him by the house to show him off. It’s by far the weirdest animal I have ever seen. Somewhere between an anteater and a hedgehog, it looked like a lopped off dinosaur tail loping around the yard on two tiny back legs. With its surprisingly calm and wise little eyes buried under thick armor I almost believed it really could have told me the weather forecast if I asked it to. Annabelle, still in her Carter’s frog pajamas and with oatmeal on her face, tottered around barefoot after it, dragging babydoll behind her. She squatted down next to Aunt Abigail (who was braver than her mother) and posed for a picture, grinning “cheese” before reaching out and running her hand across the scales as wide as her palm. Not even a year and a half old and already petting pangolins.

Bryan jumped on a bus to Kenya a few days ago and is flying North from there today. He will be gone a couple weeks, spending time in the refugee camp trying to find answers to our many questions. I already miss him like crazy, but am anxious to hear what he learns. There is a long list of people I hope he finds and I am both hopeful and terrified to hear how they are. While he is traipsing around the bush in North Africa, Annabelle and I are hanging out in Tanzania at my parent’s quiet, cool house, waiting again, but enjoying the company.

It has been fun to watch Annabelle readjust to the continent of her birth. She spends most afternoons wandering around the back yard, picking up bruised franjipani flowers or rocks, or sometimes slipping leaves through slats in the baby goat pen for the kids to nibble. There is a troop of neighborhood children who whisk her off from time to time and she alternates from overwhelmed to overjoyed by their presence, depending on her moods. Her shins are scratched up and she is filthy by bath time, but I’m not sure I’ve ever seen her so happy. Watching her through a screen-door is a bit like watching an echo of my own childhood and it makes me realize how much I want my daughter to grow up in Africa.

I want her to grow up in Africa because I want her feet to be honest-to-goodness filthy at the end of the day. I want her to grow up, maybe not color-blind exactly – she’s already had her hair and arms rubbed enough to know that people are different – but to grow up so cheek-to-cheek with those differences that they don’t really feel like differences anymore. I want her to know what poverty is, what it eats and drinks and how it plays. I want her to be outside. A lot. I want her to learn languages and music styles, even ones much of the world has never heard of. I want her to be a dang good tree climber. I want her to see enough of this big world that she never once regrets missing out on high school band trips or cheerleading tryouts. I want her to have first crushes on boys that look different than she does. I want her to grow up aware of how wealthy she is, and thankful for it. I want her to grow up thinking that beauty is thick hair and bright eyes and a strong, healthy body. And I want her to grow up having strange pets, probably not pangolins, they’re a bit too scaly for me even if they can tell the future, but other peculiar things she will one day tell her grandchildren about.

There are plenty of things still to wonder about, even a few to worry about from time to time. But watching my daughter play this morning I couldn’t help but think, “It’s good to be back.”

(P.S. - I am back in the land of touchy internet too so sorry for the wonky formatting of pictures and text...)