growing up garly

Most Garly kids don’t see beyond a two mile circumference surrounding their house. They will not visit nearby villages until they are old enough to have business there. They don’t learn geography or history in school and any insight about the outer world is gathered from snatches on TVs spoken in languages they will probably never learn to speak. Many kids think France is right next door and America is on another planet.

Kids strut in groups, herd cattle, play at the river and in the dirt. Garly is a sandy playground- 100% recess and familiar faces. They act out adult behaviors. Tiny plastic pails are dunked into puddles of muddy water, just like the women at the well. Little boys run with strings in their mouths (as a horse with reins) and are steered by their masters. Dolls made of rags and sticks are carried on little backs. Marbles are slammed through the sand and plastic lids are the major players in complicated soccer stimulation games.

If you’re not hungry, life here as a young child would be of the stuff heaven is made of.

But I don’t relate. By ten years of age I rode my bike a mile to school and vacationed several states away. My dad drove us to family reunions, took us to Shakespeare plays in the park, and picnics on the beach. My young world was huge and I explored it in our station wagon- even that changing from the big and blue to the small and red. I memorized the cracks in our front steps, but I felt the vastness of life beyond our sidewalk.

Such a chasm between my sports camps and field trips, and Garly children pretending to pray at sunset next to their parents.