Barney The Bear

Corine got tickets for all the creche kids to see South Africa's first-ever (or fourth, depending on which sign you believe) appearance of Barney, "that purple bear," as she called him. It was at the theme park Gold Reef City, a nightmare only in that there were hundreds of other children who were pretty much completely indistinguishable from our group. It wasn't so bad at first, because all the other buses of kids unloading in the parking lot got off with standard elementary school field trip mechanisms in place, such as matching smocks, bright shirts, group leashes, or some sort of buddy system at the least. But then the generous geniuses running Gold Reef City decided to hand out white Barney t-shirts to every single child -- a perfect storm.

A major portion of the day was spent in the bathrooms. Our kids would all pee with the stalls open, and when we requested that they please wash their hands, they stood in line to be boosted to reach the soap and water, splashing and giggling and then going to the back of the line again until we caught on. Between their giddy excitement, free sugar, and overstimulation, and our not knowing or properly pronouncing their names, it was a miracle we left with all our own children. More than once throughout the day, we would spot a small quiet child waiting patiently in line with our group for a ride - a dead giveaway that she did not come from Sparrow. We would tote her around, shouting "This one's not ours," until some adults would recognize her and then scold her for their negligence. Our kids were also frustratingly fond of impulsively darting into crowds, spotting a dragon ride or bumper cars, and running for their lives.

One interesting phenomenon was that the Sparrow children seemed to have never seen real live white kids before. They have been around plenty of white adults (though they still love stroking my unfamiliar hair over and over) and watch enough American movies and television to know white kids exist. But one of my girls simply walked up to a small blond girl just her height, peered into her eyes, and then cupped her cheek in the palm of her hand. They just stood there gazing at each other, as if madly in love, until rent apart by the girl's mother, who yanked her daughter's hand and barked, "Let's go!"










At the end of the afternoon, the buses were late picking us up, and we had to kill an hour in the parking lot keeping children from flinging each other into traffic. Once the novelty of our digital cameras wore off, we let them climb all over us, do our hair, show us tricks. We led them in all the playground games we could remember, then started making them up. At one point a schism broke spontaneously into a rousing rendition of "Happy Birthday," which I somehow never recognized before as lacking both a beginning and an end.


Here is a poorly lit montage of singing and dancing:


Now watch kids go round and round on rides: