On Friday Lauren hosted another slumber party after surf club. This time four girls, no boys. One of the girls came with nothing but a bathing suit, not even shoes because she came straight from the beach and what else does a 9 year old need at the beach? Another arrived with just her school uniform. The overnight had been negotiated over lunch and who takes overnight things to school?
With no malls, bowling alleys, movie theatres, skating rinks, or paint-your-own-pottery outlets, overnights are the entertainment of choice for the Country Day School kids. They happen all the time.
As I watched these girls leap from one slippery surface to another, do flips into a shallow pool off a wall, and run over rocks and debris in bare feel, I couldn’t help thinking about a charming 7 year old Canadian we met recently who had a story to tell.
She and her sister were twirling and dancing around their living room, and in her exuberance, she banged her head on a marble pillar, then fell backward, slamming her head on the tile floor, after which point she began to seizure.
Telling me the story, she looked at me with wide eyes and said, “Its a long way to the hospital.” And it is. Over an hour.
In this place which is rife with venomous snakes, traffic near-misses, and inexplicable holes in the sidewalks, its an observation to keep in mind.
The Canadian? She’s fine. She got McDonalds in Liberia after the hospital, and her younger sister is now twirling an dancing right next to the marble pillar because she knows, of course, that McDonalds is also only an hour away.