If You Give a Mouse a Cookie

written May 9th

In Kigali something very amazing happened the other day. So back story, there are many kids who ask muzungu’s for amafaronga (money). All the time they hold out their hands and say give me money. (By the way please does not exist in this language neither do any words we would use to be polite. This includes store and restaurant settings they say I want or give me. No please, no polite statements its just the culture not because they are rude. Oh and also hissing at a waiter or waitress is how to get their attention.) So anyway back to my story a kid was asking me for money so I held out my hand and asked him for money. He gave me 25 francs, then continued to ask me for money so I gave him back the money he gave me and he continued to ask. It was really unexpected and maybe a little rude of me but who would have guessed he would actually give me money. Well a few days later my friend did the same thing, asked the kid begging for money and she was given 100Francs. That’s actually a descend amount of money, enough to buy a lolli-pop or a chocolate truffle. She gave it back but still its so crazy that this has now happened twice in the same area.