Pelimliwa…my little brother in Africa

Here it is as promised, the first of many descriptions of my students. Pelimliwa, very easily and frankly put, is my little brother in Africa. Take Eric, put him in the countryside of a 3rd world country and paint him black. Oh and cut the mop of a head of hair that he has. Voila Pelimliwa, well not quite, but he is darn near close. No one could ever replace my brother, but there are certain nuances that I see in Pelimliwa that are scary close to the way that Eric acts: the intelligent (Eric don’t let your head get to big on this section cause you still have a long way to go), too smart for your own good, athletic, defiant against all odds, younger brother mentality, stay up all night to play games attitude… to name a few. And yes we did stay up until 1 in the morning on a school night playing checkers and card games and there was one night where he brought a friend and fell asleep on my floor while I was taking on the other kid in checkers. Sound familiar Eric?

As I said, no one will ever replace my brother. And it is actually him who has helped me stay here this long in a roundabout way. I have noticed that in being so far away from my native family I have imprinted the aspect that has been most important to me on someone here. Not to diminish any of my relationships with my family members, but the one that I have with my brother is incredible. Family members have seen it and outsiders have seen it. It isn’t a typical brotherhood. And that one aspect of my life has been something that I haven’t talked about much in being here until now. It is extremely difficult to deal with not being there and being here, but this kid has filled in. Talk about a 5 star blue chip prospect. He has done about everything humanly possible without even knowing it that has allowed me to maintain a part of my identity that is amazingly important to me so that when I do go home I can pick up right where I left off.

I can honestly say that if it weren’t for this kid, I would have left the school and maybe the country a long time ago.