The next day, we get three taxis across town to the Child Development Center run by AHOPE. The CDC is designed to let HIV-positive kids remain with their parents, by giving them a place to spend their days. The girls have been painting the bedrooms there for days on end, and we are going to paint the last bedroom and two classrooms.

The CDC is a one-story yellow building in a large dusty lot. When we come through the gate, kids emerge from nowhere to come greet us. They throw their arms around our necks and kiss us, or solemnly shake or hold our hands. When we paint, they peek in the door and whisper until we turn to look at them, and then they all scatter. In one of the classrooms, a couple of boys repeatedly come to the door and yell hello! before running away and returning a few seconds later to start all over again. They give us lunch of shiro and beets and I am shocked to find that I love beets, after years of thinking I hate them. At the same time, I should admit that you could soak a rat in shiro and I would still eat it, so maybe my discovery isn’t as valid as I hoped.

We get the buses back across town, stopping at Piazza and Mexico to arrive at big AHOPE so the girls can teach English class. While they teach, T plays basketball with the boys and the guard, and I play more tatare with the girls. I quit playing before I shame the ferenge race forever, and one of the little girls starts braiding my hair while another tries to fix my bangs. She pushes them all over to one side and then pulls them all the way back. Konjo? I ask her. Am I pretty? She wrinkles her little nose and shakes her head. No. I am not pretty. As if to reassure me, she pulls the bangs back and then pats my cheeks.

By the time we leave, it’s dark outside. M’s flipflop has broken and she is walking up the hill, dragging one leg behind her so her sandal doesn’t fall off. By the peak of the hill, we have decided we need a taxi home, but none come. Instead, T takes his shoelace and ties it around her ankle, Roman-style, so she can at least make it home.