"You're Cheating Me!"

Here is a snapshot from Saturday that I wanted to add to Tbone’s post. There were two awesomely hilarious moments one right after the other…

During one of the races, a car drove by occupied by two Asians. This is a rare sight in Nyeri, Kenya (more so than the occasional Mzungu sighting). Little Edwin immediately rushed across the road to me and said, "Emilee, do you know them? They are the same as you? Chinese." (Every Asian to them is Chinese by the way) This was followed by at least five other kids asking similar questions. This was funny in and of itself but then I got into a conversation with some as I was trying to explain my ethnicity...

"No, I don’t know them and I'm Korean not Chinese. I'm half Korean and…half Kenyan!" This got the response of many excited giggles and shouts of "No! Mzungu!"

Then one little one said, "You're cheating me!" This is a statement we have gotten before from others when we are joking with them but the hilarity arises from the fact that the statement comes out pronounced as "you're shitting me!" Similar to the monkey nuts story (see Jonathan's blog below), the blind innocence of what they are saying makes the whole experience that much cuter and funnier. Imagine yourself surrounded by a group of little ones saying, "You're shitting me! You’re shitting me!" in high pitched squeals.

It was awesome.