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Wednesday, February 6, 2008

Assignment : Escape From Murderous Children

posted by on February 6 at 11:15 AM

Okay, I know this is a long piece and it wasn’t actually an internship assignment, and it has no relation to politics, or arts, or Seattle….but I have to share it with all of you. So here goes….

Today I went to Walmer Township High School in South Africa hoping to work with some of the students on their English compositions. By the time I arrived, it was late in the day, and hot in the classrooms, and none of the students were down with sitting and talking about their writing. I contemplated going home, but decided I would accompany Anthony, one of the study abroad program directors, to the Walmer basketball courts to watch the kids shoot hoops.

Fifteen minutes into the game, a 5 year old girl grabbed my arm. She smiled up at me and played with my arm hair, rubbing her skin against mine. I thought it was cute, and a little weird.

“My hairy arms must look silly to you,” I said to her, but she didn’t understand English. Then another boy came and started pulling on my leg. Cute, I thought. They like me. I smiled down at them. “I am a mountain,” I thought to myself, “You can play on me, you can pull my hair, you can drool on me, but I’m staying put. I am a calm peaceful mountain.”

Then the five year old girl started biting my crotch.

Ok, not my actual penis but the cloth surrounding it. “Ack!” I yelled. “Can someone err help me?” I looked up but everyone was super absorbed by the basketball practice. “Quick, how do I say stop it in Xhosa?” I asked a boy standing next to me. “Sizwe!” he said (or something. shit I forgot…) Then he looked down at the girl who’s teeth were wrapped around my crotch fabric and glared at her. He said something in Xhosa, and began to unbutton his belt. “Wait, what are you doing?” I asked him. “I’m threatening her,” he said. “Oh.” I said. The girl screamed and let go of my crotch and ran away, smiling.

I imagine her internal monologue was something along the lines of “oh you think you can fuck with me? Hahaha I laugh in your face. You’re going to get that 12 year old to fuck with me? You don’t got shit. I’m gonna fuck you up. Just you wait.”

I am scared. I am under attack by violent and insane 5 year olds and everyone is laughing like this is something adorable.

A young boy wanders up to me and grabs for my sunglasses. I let him try them on, because I am a complete moron. Within five minutes, there is a ginormous crowd of 4,5,6, and 7 year olds reaching for my sunglasses. I wonder to myself if 5 year olds ever abduct 21 year olds and bite them to death.

I run away. This was the second tactic I’d been considering; running for my life. They chase me and scream. I turn around and growl as loud as I can. A few run away screaming. They think this is just a game.

Of course not everyone runs away when I roar. I am not a very intimidating person, even with a roar. A few stick around and try and punch me. “Ahhhh! Why won’t you leave me alone!” I yell. More smiles. “Please please please, stop it.” I try and pick one of the girls up on my shoulders, the way I’d seen other people do it, but the girl kicks and punches me in the face, so I let go of her. She goes flying into the dirt. I could get jailed for this shit in America.

Now I am all out of tactics; I’ve tried calm, aggressive, playful, stoic, and talkative. I can’t throw children around, because that’s “illegal,” but nothing is working. I can’t get the goddammn children away from me.

“Oh hello,” the first five year old is now standing under my shorts and peering up them. “Please don’t…that is disrespectful” I say to her. “Oohhh!” she says.

I walk away from her and stand next to the same eight year old who had translated the Xhosa for me. I now considered him my bodyguard. “Please help me,” I say to him. “I don’t like children anymore.”

The boy says something else in Xhosa, and then the girl says something and then there is silence for about three seconds. “Uh. The girl says she wants us to kiss, and she also says you’re not wearing any underwear.” “Well, I am wearing underwear,” I say to the boy. “Tell her that.” More Xhosa. “She says she wants us to kiss.”

“Ha ha very funny,” I say, and kick the dust with my sandals. The boy smiles at me and I replay an episode of Law and Order in my brain. What if this boy kisses me? He’s eight! Imagine the lawsuits.

The little girl continues to peer up my shorts and I try to shoo her away. Then she sticks up her middle finger and shakes it at me. “Fuckyoooo” she says. It’s the first time I’ve heard her speak in English. I gasp.

Just then, a few of the girls from our program arrive at the basketball courts. They’d been leading a class on Women’s Issues. One of them, Melanie, is attacked by the same children who’d attacked me, but she is serenely calm about it all. She picks up the children and plops one on each shoulder. They coo and play with her blonde hair. Melanie looks supremely calm and unaffected. One of the other students from the study abroad program begins snapping photos of her with the children.

Oh just you wait, I think to myself. Wait till one of them tries to bite you in the crotch, or rub snot all over your hair.

But nothing bad happens. In fact, nothing happens at all. Melanie takes some more Princess Di pictures with the children, pictures that will look excellent as facebook profile pictures, because of how perfect the lighting is and how perfect Melanie’s hair is, and how perfectly everyone is smiling. Clouds part and the smoke from a distant widfire sneaks into the frame, perfectly.

I sit down in the grass, mutter to myself and wait for our group to leave.

RSS icon Comments

1

Steven, Can we at least get a photo of what that girl saw when she was staring up the leg of your shorts?

It must have been pretty enticing!

Posted by Perv | February 6, 2008 11:43 AM
2

Faaaabulous.

Posted by tomasyalba | February 6, 2008 11:44 AM
3

sad. if they had oil we could bomb them.

Posted by max solomon | February 6, 2008 11:46 AM
4

This is what must have happened at Oprah's school...horny, female students starting nibbling and molesting the matrons, and the poor matrons get blamed for it!!

Oprah needs to send Dr Phil to South Africa, stat!

Posted by michael strangeways | February 6, 2008 11:48 AM
5

Do we even know for sure that this is our Steven?

Posted by Name, Please. | February 6, 2008 11:53 AM
6

I just read this ten minutes ago on your blog and almost commented telling you how much I'm enjoying your blog. I'm glad you're still getting to post on SLOG!

Posted by Callie | February 6, 2008 11:56 AM
7

I know this is racist, but can we get Charles' take on this?

Posted by Gloria | February 6, 2008 12:26 PM
8

Christ, I thought it was just me. Anytime I'm around little kids, that's basically what happens to me - they mob me and physically molest me.

Posted by Geni | February 6, 2008 12:28 PM
9

Isn't this how it ended so badly for Sebastian Venable in "Suddenly, Last Summer"? Just sane.

Posted by RHETT ORACLE | February 6, 2008 12:33 PM
10

Steven,

For your own peace-of-mind, I suggest you take this test right away.

Posted by COMTE | February 6, 2008 12:34 PM
11

My 4 year old nephew likes to haul off and punch me in the crotch as hard as he can. Which, when it's your crotch, is pretty damn hard.

I, being the uncle who's a little weak with the discipline, sometimes laugh which hasn't helped.

I've learned I really have to pay attention to my junk when around kids age 2-7, which seems to be the prime ages for crotch attacks.

Posted by DJSauvage | February 6, 2008 12:42 PM
12

I'm not really sure what the point of your studying in South Africa is. Like, when you major in French, you might go and live in France for a while to learn French and meet French people and figure out how France works. If you major in aquaculture, you might go and live in Norway for a while to learn some Norwegian and see how Norwegians farm fish. If you major in digital animation, you might go to Singapore or Korea on an internship to learn how animation is being done in those places. If you go into the Peace Corps, you go to remote locations and help teach or build irrigation systems, etc.

But going to small South African villages to consult on writing (?) and get sexually assaulted by girls with precocious sexuality (evidence of abuse, fyi)? What is the point of your trip there again? Why are you there?

Posted by S. M. | February 6, 2008 12:45 PM
13

@12 Studying abroad is not just about languages, though with eleven languages, he could certainly do that in South Africa. It's about learning about a culture. It's about getting outside everything you've known so well because you've been surrounded by it your entire life, and really recognizing how people in other parts of the world live.

Posted by Gitai | February 6, 2008 1:11 PM
14

Oy vey. Now that this piece is up on the Slog, I'm already having nightmares that people will use my writing as a reason not to travel anywhere in Africa.

If people decide to augment their study abroad plans and not go to South Africa because of something I write on the Slog, then those people are fucking retarded (scuse my french) for taking a (slightly) humorous first-person narrative piece from a satirical alt-weekly and using that writing to not do something.

The point of art is to expose a society to itself, not to sugar coat things, not to placate and soothe scared people. If this kind of writing provokes people, perhaps they should understand the difficult emotions that rise to the surface when they read this and look at themselves with compassion rather than blame or shame the message sender. That is just stupid. Puh-lease. You’re reading the Slog, not a South African guidebook. Get over yourself.

I hope that the people who read my writing will come here, experience the country for themselves, and decide what they think.

Hopefully, most reasonable people already understand this.

Posted by Steven Blum | February 6, 2008 1:21 PM
15

howmanyfiveyearoldscouldyoutakeinafight.com

(yeah, it's real, make with the clicking)

Posted by Anon | February 6, 2008 2:55 PM
16

years ago the next door neighbors' large three year old escaped from naptime while his mom was distracted - this happened frequently - and raced down his front steps as I was walking by. He ran up to me and tried to bite my crotch.
It's out-of-control, poorly managed by their parents, kids who do this.

Posted by isabelita | February 6, 2008 3:23 PM
17

@14: Not to worry. I wasn't going to Africa anyway.

Posted by J.R. | February 6, 2008 4:23 PM
18

I know this is Marxist, but can we get Charles' take on this?

Posted by NapoleonXIV | February 6, 2008 9:01 PM

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