Oops...

Wednesday afternoon I was home thinking about how I needed to write a new blog and was trying to come up with some new ideas, when I accidentally created a situation myself…..

Three little girls came over to take some papayas from my trees and to play (Fatiminha, Vanessa, and Merina, all about 9 years old).  I shut my door behind me to join them outside, not thinking anything of it.

Now, let me explain the lock on my door.  It has a normal door latch that any American door has, but you have to use the key to open it, just like turning a handle would open a door in your house. 

Yes, you probably guessed it, I locked myself out of the house.  I had always thought about this happening at some point and just wasn’t thinking when I shut the door.

I turned to the little girls and explained the situation, keys and phone both locked inside.  We tried wedging the lock open with a kitchen knife I had left outside with my washed dishes.  Nothing.  They turned to me and said, “Well I guess you are going to sleep outside tonight.”

Then one of the little girls mentioned that another girl, Esperança (another 9 year old who likes to come play), had “a key that could open any lock.”  I didn’t really understand what she meant by this, thinking how that probably was impossible, but well, it was either that or try kicking my door down.  So, I opted to try this magic key first. 

On my way over to Esperança’s house, lucky for me, it was time for the afternoon call to prayer, and I fortunately came across my carpenter on his way to the nearby mosque.  I explained my situation to him, thinking maybe he had some tool that could work or would have an idea what to do, asking him to come over after he finished praying.

I continued to Esperanca’s house and explained my problem to her mom, a very nice lady who I have sat and talked with a few other times too.  Surprisingly, she was more sympathetic than amused and never even laughed at me! 

So this magic key that could open any lock?   It was a screwdriver….. I smiled to myself and thought, well this is worth a try I guess.  Not surprisingly, the screwdriver didn’t work.  So I waited for Saida to come by, looking at the door trying to devise a plan for how to go about kicking it down if necessary, while also playing with about ten kids who had appeared in my yard.  As a good teacher would, I took advantage of the opportunity of having so many children around and taught them the alphabet song I had made J (same as the good ol’ version, just with Portuguese pronunciations).

Saida showed up not too much later and brought with him a chisel-like tool to essentially pry open the lock.  Success, it worked!  It did indeed break the lock a little, but nothing too bad, just snapping off the latch part, but I can still lock it perfectly well with a key.

The little kids, ages 6 to 11, had stuck around for the entire adventure, so I had a little reading session with them on my veranda.  Peace Corps, in conjunction with Books for Kids Africa, started a pilot program with my group of volunteers, providing us each with 50 Portuguese books of differing levels and difficulties to use as we saw fit in our communities.

Though their attention span was pretty short, I read one short book with them and then let them flip through the pages of a few others, hoping that slowly I can build an interest for reading.  One of the older boys even practiced reading with me a little, expressing a keen interest in improving his reading level, something I look forward to continuing with him and with some other kids too.