Little Brothers

It is so cute to see our boys walking down a path with a bunch of little people pushing in to get close, hanging on their shirts, and wanting to be with them. Our home culture tends to segregate children based on age. I remember on our last furlough in the US that this was something that was hard for the boys to get used to. They normally do everything together.

This little boy’s mother had to leave for a time and so he stayed at the house next to ours for several weeks. He was on our porch most days, playing with blocks and looking at picture books. His grandmother kept pestering him, telling him he needed to bathe and how big boys bathe and if he wanted his mom to think he was a big boy when she got back he needed to bathe. The streams where people bathe are frigid and the weather is often cold and cloudy. It is hard to blame the little guy for not wanting to take a bath.

He reasoned with me one day that he wasn’t a big boy yet because he didn’t have a string bag like big boys had. Teenagers and men are rarely without their string bag. A men’s bag is typically much smaller than a women’s bag. This little boy told me he would like to have a bag like Hudson’s. Hudson keeps all his ammunition for his sling shot, a lighter, and the essentials to jungle living in his bag.

So I knitted a colorful bag for him so that he could surprise his mom and show her how grown up he was when she came home. He was pretty excited when I surprised him with it, and he did eventually bathe as well. : )