The other day Marisol and I went to a little town to do some “work”. We had 6 kids to measure and weigh, and we had just less than 7 hours to do it. I was worried we wouldn’t have enough time, but everything turned out to be O.K. Activities to kill time included playing voli, having political conversations, and playing on the swings with the kids. This proved to be the most interesting.
So kids here basically run crazy, which I think I’ve mentioned before. The three women who worked in the FODI center (essentially a dare care center for kids aged 2 to 5) were inside gabbing with Marisol while the kids were outside, swinging out of control 2 to a swing, on a rickety homemade swing set. I figured I’d go outside and look after the kids to make sure nothing happened. I turned out to have exactly the opposite effect.
About 20 minutes after I started playing with the kids, one went flying off the swings and started to cry. This is really common, so I wasn’t too worried. Plus, it gave me a chance to pick up a cute little kid and comfort him for a while. He hadn’t even peed his pants recently, so that was a plus.
About another 20 minutes after that, one of the kids vacated a swing. When no one rushed to fill it, I started to swing. Higher and higher I pumped. One moment I was in the air, and the next I was on my back, and kids were crying all around me. The top beam of the swing set had broken Into 3 pieces. Luckily, none of these three pieces fell on any of the kids, and everyone was ok. All of the FODI workers rushed out. I said something funny and self humiliating and everyone cracked up. For some reason, after that everyone just loved me. Destroying playground equipment and almost killing children usually has that effect. Plus I got to pick up and coddle more cute, relatively pee free children.