His Gift

I don't really remember the first time I met Gift. At some point, he just started showing up to play ball.  With the timing of evening activities I didn't make it out every night, and it took me longer than David to get everyone's names down.

I do, however, remember the first time I noticed him.  As we would scramble and fight for the ball, tiny little kids would make their way to the front steps of the orphanage.  Some of them wanted to play but were just too small.  Others were too sick.  Still others were just there to watch. Two- and three-year-olds would show up with babies who could barely walk strapped to their backs or tottering behind. 

A side note about Africa-- life is just harsher here. I don't think anything of tiny little kids wandering around by themselves.  The fence to the village clinic has 10 foot gaping holes interspersed periodically around its perimeter through which the area farm animals can conveniently enter.  There's a bare mattress on a bed frame in the delivery room, but you have to step over a pile of goat droppings to get to it.  On of the boys who played soccer with us each night was covered, head and torso, in ringworm, and he hugged me goodbye the same way everyone else did.  It's not that I don't recognize the sadness or comical oddity of some of these situations; it's just that in the midst of them, when I'm surrounded by them, I'm not really fazed by them. You just handle it and move on. 

So anyway...

The first time I noticed Gift was when Kunda and Musonda were scrapping over the ball. Kunda kicked it with so much force that I'm pretty sure it broke the sound barrier. It sailed straight past the players and bowled little Eunice Mwense, age 3, right off of the stairs. It hit her in the head. Hard. And then she landed on her head. Hard.

Gift got there before I did. He scooped her up and sat on the porch with her, running his fingers across the back of her head. She had thick matted hair, tinged orange with the characteristic protein deficiency of Kwashiorkors. He tenderly worked his fingers through it, talking and singing gently the whole while and looking her over repeatedly. She seemed to be okay. She sported an impressive goose egg, but she was going to be fine.  I reached down to take her, and Gift looked up at me. Then he took my hand and placed it on Eunice's legs.  They were crusted and scabbed with the sores that come from malnutrition and a dirty living environment. He didn't say anything. He just looked at me.

And he knew that I knew, and so now he knew that I couldn't just do nothing.

But I'll tell Eunice's story later.  This is BaGifti's story.

David and I remarked to each other on several occasions that Gift would be a great dad someday.  Sometimes he would get bored with the game and would go heckle the little kids.  He would lead them in chants and cheers, gesturing for them to scream louder and dancing with them on the steps.  All of the post-game dance parties were his brainchild.

David and Gifti after a realllllly long sudden death match.

That's really no surprise though, because Gift's eyes are always dancing.  His laugh is infectious, and he rarely takes anything seriously if he can avoid it.  Right before Mutomboko, it became very difficult to play in the street because so many "important" people kept rolling by in their vehicles.  This is another example of Africa's ability to confer a casualness upon circumstances that would make the average American soccer mom's hair curls. Allan (who happens to be Gift's cousin) darted across the road to get the ball just as the Ministry of Edcation (yes, that's how they spelled it... ha!) truck, packed full of proud and stuffy administrators, was chugging slowly down the middle of our field... I mean, the road.  Allan was a good 25 feet in front of the vehicle.  I didn't think a thing of it.  Neither did the driver of the truck at first, but 20 yards down the road he changed his mind and tried to reverse. After zigzagging across the entire road a few times he managed to make it back to where we were. He shook his finger sternly at Allan and began angrily shouting, over and over again, "That is bad manners! Very bad manners!" Allan was bewildered.

But Gift came to the rescue. He side-stepped in front of Allan and began mock-pleading with the man behind the wheel for forgiveness. He's quite the actor, and if I didn't know Gift better than that then I might have believed the performance. The man kept yelling about manners. Gift fell to his knees with his hands clasped in front of him, "Ah, yes! We are just poor rude village kids. Thank you so much for your kindness and your teaching! We will always have good manners now! Sorry, sorry, so sorry!" I faked a sneeze to hide a snort of laughter. The man in the car nodded to signify appeasement and then chugged away. Gift winked at me and said, "Those kind, they are all the same." Then he flashed that smile of his, motioned for the little ones to cheer him on, stole the ball, and bolted for the opposite goal.

Gift will make his way into many more of my stories and in fact may have more than one future post dedicated to his antics. He traveled with us to Lusaka when we were on our way home, and I could write a whole book about that. For now, though, these few anecdotes will have to do.

I have to say-- I miss this kid.