They sat facing each other; two little brown girls with chubby legs and kinky hair. Both, only two years old, each eying the other suspiciously while their mothers laughed easily with one another at their babies’ seriousness. One only understood English, the other; French and Creole in a country that spoke Amhara.

And that was the beginning. The beginning of the next five years braiding each other’s hair, singing together, laughing together, skipping together, running together, hiding from mama together. Trying the Mamite’s* patience, making mud pies, tormenting baby sisters, learning ABC’s, 1, 2, 3s, watching “The Sound of Music” 1000 times, I think we even tried to build a pool once…

And then, one day, one little girl had to leave. One little girl had to go back “home”. And the two little girls were awfully confused because as far as they knew, they were both “home”, what they didn’t know, is that neither of them were. Two little girls, with skinny legs, grazed knees and kinky hair, sitting side by side at the airport clutching each other. Fat tears rolling down their cheeks, two little girls, getting their first taste of heart break.

Ten years later, two brown women, with curved hips and kinky hair embrace in a bus terminal. So much to say, so many memories to conjure. They laugh, they talk, they stare, shaking their heads in disbelief. A lifetime of shared secrets, of inside jokes; a shared magical childhood of made up languages and imaginary friends come to life once more in a bus terminal in New York City.

They sit, facing each other; two brown women, crying, laughing, remembering. Each, seeing in the other, those two little brown girls with the chubby legs and kinky hair.

fin.

*Mamite – Housekeeper

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