Strangers and Knuckles

One of the things that I will really miss about being here is how friendly ‘strangers’ are, especially to little children. I am reminded of this every time we take a walk on the beach where we are met with so many smiles and waves—not to mention the pinching of Kaia’s cheeks. I don’t know how much Kaia likes the attention, but he’s generally a good sport—answering the common “what’s your name” with a confident “Kaia”. There have been some really memorable encounters with strangers and Kaia—there was the time I thought an approaching woman was going to ask for money as she extended her hand toward us in that familiar pose, but then with cat-like reflexes pinched Kaia’s cheek and kept walking—but the other day something happened that really surprised me.

We were at the nearby temple and Kaia was doing his routine of bowing and walking around the temple in circles. After finishing there were some women that were all looking at him with these huge, glowing smiles. One of them walked up to him and didn’t just pinch his cheek (which she did) and kiss her fingers (as most people do after the pinch). She pinched with both hands and then immediately, with both hands, cracked her knuckles with a good deal of force on the side of her head. It struck me as a very odd gesture and somewhat disarming—seeing a person touch your child and then pound their head isn’t something you expect to see. The next day I asked Joyce what this meant and she ask me, “who did that!?!” I explained the situation and she told me that it is something that people only do when they see, what they consider to be, an extraordinarily beautiful child. Because it is considered to be bad form in the face of god to speak how a child is cute or precious, people’s feelings are expressed in the kissing of the hand which has touched the child or, in this case, a cracking of the knuckles on the side of the head. It did strike me when she did it as something that a slightly crazy person would do (she looked a bit wild while doing it)—I guess that she was just saying that she was ‘crazy’ for Kaia. I really love little things like this about this country.

Why I Love this Time: A unique and humorous event that will happen from time to time is that Kaia will find Joyce’s bindi stuck in random places around the flat. Just in the last week, Kaia has found one affixed on the side of a door and another on the patio where we dry clothes. While there are some bindis that are large, Joyce wears a small bindi, about the size of Kaia’s fingernail—and it is easy for them to get misplaced and fall off from time to time. It has become a minor sport for Kaia to find “Joycee’s bindeee” and affix them back between her eyebrows. Sometimes he’ll even put them on himself. It is really funny.