Cool Cats

Apologies for the double safari blog but I realize I didn’t write a blog about the trip to Murchison I took with my boys, Babu and Samson, along with our friends Inbal and Pierre. We planned this trip well in advance based on the boys’ boarding school holidays. I also planned it because the next time they’re home I may be gone or going – a thought that fills me with guilt. I know the boys are also thinking about my departure with great anxiety.

I love hanging out with these boys. I have a parent-friend hybrid relationship, which means I can boss them around and download their latest hip hop music. It also fascinates me that despite the fact that these two kids are orphans and grew up night commuting to escape LRA abduction, they're really not much different than teens in the US. They’re tortured by puberty. Babu is a ladies’ man. It’s funny, because he’s not a big talker, but he’s got game. Samson is a mama’s boy or would be if he had a mom. He shares his feelings and even calls me often from school for no reason. Unfortunately, he does not have game. The other day I introduced the concept of a stalker to him as a preventative strategy. He wants a girlfriend badly and is clearly stuck in the friend zone.

As a semi-parental figure, I’m very lucky that I only receive about 30% of their potential attitude capabilities. I can almost see them reeling in the attitude and mortification when I do something that embarrasses them. We went to visit them at school recently and they were squirming when I made them pose with me for a picture in front of their friends. The mere fact that I wasn't using their cool new school names (Sammy and Ricky) was killin them. I loved it!

Another universal trait of a teenager is selfishness mixed with greed, or rather the “need” to acquire stuff. I kinda like this trait though. It's very different from the crippling corruption plaguing everyday life in Africa. These kids aren’t swindling me; they just want to be cool around their friends. The other reason I like it (and perhaps parents of teens will concur) is because I have to admit that I like spoiling them...within reason.

Samson and I got into it the other day. He called me from school and asked me to buy him a pair of shoes. I immediately refused. I told him I would buy him the wrong pair and besides he’d be home in a few weeks. He insisted, I relented and guess what? He hated them. The conversation went like this:

So what did you think of the shoes?
Well Jess, they’re not really ok.
Damn it Samson! I told you! I’m taking them back and you’re not getting another pair!
Jess…that’s not fair

Aha! The universal teenage anthem: that's not fair. I had to fight to keep the smile off my face.

So we entered the safari park and I laid out the rules 1) no ipods on safari 2) internet after dinner only. These rules had to be reiterated throughout the trip. “Babu, isn’t that giraffe cool?” “Babu?” “Damn it Babu I said no ipod!”

They loved it though. Despite the park being in their backyard their whole lives, this was the first time they had been there. I had to pry a bit for monosyllabic responses. “Wasn’t that lion cool?” “Yeah.” Did you enjoy the boat ride?” “Yeah.”

I think teenage boys are kind of like cats. (Sigh…crazy cat lady alert.) Cats often like to be near you, but they do not necessarily require physical contact or your undivided attention. The night we returned from safari, the boys came over. They didn’t talk much. Their ipods were blaring and they were combing through facebook. But they hung out all night and hugged me when they left.