Bry'Chell is Thirteen

Today Bry'Chell is officially a teenager. This morning when we called Tiffany, her mom, in Chicago it was still Wednesday, March 18th. This led to a discussion about whether she was really thirteen yet since she was born in Chicago. I told her that it didn't really matter--either she was thirteen now or she would be in three hours. Either way was close enough for me.

For some reason Bry'Chell does not want to be a teenager. She keeps using the jingle from the Toys R Us commercial--"I don't want to grow up, I'm a Toys are Us kid. There's a million toys at Toys R Us that I can play with..."

I told her that if she doesn't want to be thirteen, she can just have anniversaries of her twelfth birthday. That doesn't seem to satisfy her. Her next line is that she will be a Huntress--this is some type of character from one of her books that stays the age she is when she becomes a Huntress. I don't get it, but Bry'Chell is convinced that she's a Huntress.

Since tonight's a school night we're not doing anything, but tomorrow night she's having a sleepover. There were supposed to be four girls coming over, now there are seven. Joy.

I told Bry'Chell to ask her friends what they wanted to eat. American kids would say things like pizza, pop, chips and candy, maybe hamburgers and hotdogs. These kids said one thing--meat. One girl specified pork.

The boarders at St. Mary's only get meat once a week, on Sundays. I'd guess it usually either chicken or goat, but I really don't know. In a culture where meat may be eaten twice a year, Easter and Christmas, meat is a big deal.

I bought meat--pork and chicken at Quality Cuts in Kampala. We'll see how it goes.

Bry'Chell tried to convince me to leave the house while her friends are here. Fat chance. Like I'm going to leave eight teenage girls alone over night. Yeah, right.