one of the brothers.

Mounden, one of the adopted children in my
family, has been intriguing to me from the
beginning. Now he's just precious. He's
15. He thinks. He doesn't know for
sure. None of the kids know for sure…they all
argue about how old they are. No one celebrates
birthdays. Maybe it's because they don't write
down when they are born and when you have 10 kids
it gets hard to remember. But back to Mounden.
He doesn't like to bathe. Our
family teases him all the time. "Mounden
doesn't bathe." Then we pull up his pant legs
to show his dirty calves and feet. Everyone
laughs and he smiles and starts defending
himself. "No! No! I bathe! Mamma! You lie!"
he says to Jolie as she is the ring leader of these common attacks.
He urinated in the corner of the hut two nights
in a row. It's really cold and I'm sure he
didn't want to go outside…so he just let it soak
into the ground of the hut. That did not go over
too well the next morning. Jolie (mother Africa)
was really disgusted and quite mad.
He is super kind. One night I came
home and no one was there except Jolie and
Mounden. Jolie got a phone call and took our
flashlight with her. That left Mounden and I
sitting in the dark. We talked for a while and
then I said, "Mouden! Let's have a tea
party!" He smiled and got really excited. I
went and found some lemonade mix and Mounden got
the wire-basket-coal-fire going. Then we made
our tea. It was so fun and opened up some awesome conversation.
Mounden was born into a family who
had no money. One day, he, his sister, and his
mother came through our village of Bere. Jolie
saw the woman with her two crying children and
asked her where she was going. The woman said
she was here to find food because she had none
back at home. Jolie could see that they were
incredibly hungry and she invited the woman
in. Then she brought a big bowl of hot buille
for her and for the two children. She gave the
lady a bag of rice and about two dollars in
francs. The woman was so appreciative. She
left and went back to her own village with the kids.
Maybe 2 months later, the woman
returned. The woman brought Jolie a chicken to
say thank-you for the help she had
given. Mouden was so skinny and Jolie could
tell that he wasn't eating well. Jolie talked
to Samedi and they offered to let Mouden stay
with them in Bere. The woman obviously didn't
have food to feed the children and she agreed.
So for the last 10 years, Mouden has
been living with my family. Jolie and Samedi
have offered to take Mouden to see his mom in
Cameroon where she now lives. But Mouden
doesn't want to go. He really loves his home
here and he calls Jolie "mama" and Samedi "papa".
Now that is dedicated Christianity
I'd say. This family didn't stop at giving
money or a place to stay for the night. THEY
TOOK A CHILD IN!! It's not like they needed
more children either. We have A LOT of kids in
our house. I am really impressed with how
unselfish that was of them. Now, of course, we
wouldn't trade Mouden for anything.
He is still extremely skinny. I
mean if I didn't know better…I would think noone
gave him food. But this is his own fault. J The
family all eats together and so everyone needs to
be there at meal times. Mouden often runs
around town and misses meal times. When he
comes home, the food is gone. There are never
leftovers in my house. He will learn. He is
growing tall too…so this stretches him out a lot.
Mouden is really good with his hands
and very good at fixing flashlights and radios,
playing with batteries, arranging wires etc. He
is always rigging something up. I gave him some
scratched up CD's that I found in a drawer here
and asked him if he could make a hanging mobile
for baby Galas to look up at. He did. Then
with one of the CDs, he drilled little holes all
around the circumference and then inserted these
tiny little lights. He connected all these
wires to each light and then hooked it up to a
battery. It shines and reflects all around the
surface of the CD. Genius boy. I asked him
what he wanted to be and he said, "A pilot." I
talked to Gary the pilot and asked if he could
take Mouden up with him soon. He said he would
do it. I can just imagine what it will be like
for him! Can you imagine going in a small
airplane for the first time! I think I'll
surprise him…not tell him where we are going.
Somehow, time goes by, and then one
day you blink and realize that someone means a whole lot to you.
We built a pigeon house the other
day. Yeah. From the ground up. Out of mud
and sticks. It is awesome. It even has a flag
pole on top of it….still need to make the
flag. I hauled so much water and we mucked up
mud with our feet! It had that feeling that I
imagine swimming in jello would have. We were
so dirty and not worrying about it. We put mud
on our faces to exaggerate the intensity of our
work. We used mud bricks and threw mud into the
cracks, rubbing the walls smooth. Then we put
long sticks for the roof covered by rice stalks
and then mud on top. It says "the Pigeon House"
across the mud roof. Mouden rigged some doors
and circular pigeon entrances. He bought some
pigeons and locked them in the house until they
learned that it was their home. Now they happily
come back every day and have their little nesting areas in the pigeon quarters.
I miss my brothers, Taylor and
Fletcher. A lot. A ton. A bunch. So these
little kids like to wrestle like brothers and
have water fights and trick me into eating
dirt. Oh brothers I'll pin you good when I get
back. I have a secret wrestling move. No one can get out of it. ;)