In front of the Kids

While I was seating on the steps of the church on the Plaza de las Pasiegas in Granada, three kids were playing football, insulting themselves, trying to behave like adults.

Last year, in Brazil, I met children who, you could tell just by looking at their body, were not older than 5. But their moves, the way they walked or simply itched their nose would make them look ten years older. It is the weight of poverty. They were going by barefoot. A little girl tried to steal my bag once. She was not higher than my waist. She grabbed my empty purse, and shouted at me, staring at me with the ugliest face I had ever seen. She was more scary than a thousand kalashnikovs pointed at me.

Back again.

November 1993. First day in a French school. I am 10 years old and I have been repatriated in Bordeaux after the beginning of a "civil war" in Gabon. I am sent to school alone and find my way to a classroom full of "white idiots". The furniture is old fashion, and kids wear aprons. I am too naive to question anything. The teacher tells me to seat next to Jean Michaux, the most detestable person the earth has ever had to bear. I call the teacher "Maîtresse" (mistress). That's how we called them back in Africa. Michaux looks at me in the eyes with the most intimidating arrogance: "Ici on ne dit pas maîtresse, on dit Madame" ("here we don't say "mistress" we say "Madam""). I bend my eyes. He then grabs his desk with his two fat hands and moves it away from mine. Oh oh, it looks like I'm gonna be in trouble.

With your pure face, you freak me out kid.