Furaha Ya Kuzaliwa to Hannah! (I'm sure you can all Google Translate)

          One of my most vivid early-childhood memories is of my first years playing soccer at the YMCA, when I was about five years old. We were probably three-quarters of the way through the game, and I was positioned at my team’s end of the field, keeping one eye on the action going on at the opposing goal, and the other on the Capri Suns and Rice Krispie Treats. No YMCA youth athletic event is complete without Capri Suns and Rice Krispie Treats.

Foods of champions.

            Suddenly, possession shifted. A horde of T-shirted kindergarteners began propelling the miniature soccer ball my way with the frenzied determination of a very angry mob. It was up to me to stop them. This was my “Right Field” moment.

            The horde came closer. I stood my ground. The shot was delivered—and calmly, confidently, I stepped in front of it and scooped it up.

            And then was told to put it down. “Next time, Hannah,” I was told gently, “remember that you have to be playing goalie to use your hands.”

            Partly to avoid similar incidents in the future, I made sure to play goalie as much as possible over the rest of my Y soccer career, and because I was a fearless child, was actually pretty good at it. I don’t believe I ever caught the ball as cleanly with my hands as I did that day at age five, but for a few years, I would happily throw myself in front of any ball to physically block it with my body. For the season or two I had braces, I even played with a giant blue plastic mouthguard to prevent my lips from getting all cut up when I stopped the ball with my face.

Then I got older. And smarter. And wimpier. And quit soccer.

So on Sunday afternoon, rather than join in the MRC-wide soccer game, I chose to play with the kids (mostly belonging to research center staff) from the Mpala village next to the soccer field that came out to watch, which I think was more exercise, anyway.

Mohammed. The cutest of the Mpala kids--a significant title, given the competition.

            I’ve never been as unconditionally liked as I was by these kids. In the United States, you have to bribe a toddler to like you with toys or a snack; in Kenya, all it takes is one piggyback ride and they’re yours. Of course, once you give a piggyback ride to one kid, you have to give one to twenty more.

I am strong enough to walk around with a Kenyan kid on my back...

But I aspire to be like fellow Princetonian Bianca Reo, who is strong enough to do pull-ups with a Kenyan kid on her back.

I wore out after a half hour and had to switch to Duck, Duck, Goose. Because Kenyan kids are really fast and disproportionately apt to name American students geese, I still only lasted half an hour before I had to take a break.

In which I am, yet again, the goose.

The kids were almost as delighted with this development, though, because it gave them an opportunity to drink all of the water from my water bottle, climb on my lap, play with my hair, and inspect all of my accessories. One chubby three-year-old was particularly taken with my necklace. He spent several minutes quietly singing a Swahili song while turning the chain around and around my neck, which was adorable. Then I stood up and he slapped me on the butt, which was also adorable…I think.

The little Kenyan kids made my afternoon awesome, but I have to give kudos to the Mpala staff and my fellow Princetonians for making the evening even better by throwing me a surprise party for my twentieth birthday, complete with streamers, a crown, a bestreamered room, Kenyan soda, “Happy Birthday” on the harmonica, and an extremely giant birthday cake. It was, as fellow Princetonian Alex Kasdin commented, “a cake experience.”

The arrow points to the "Hannah."

The kitchen staff usually bakes a cake to celebrate birthdays, but no one I talked to, including people who have been at Mpala for months already, could recall the last time a birthday was celebrated with double layers.

Me and Eunice, the baker and architect of the cake experience.