No you aren’t misreading the title and yes this is about dead fish water, but that isn’t all. This is about yours truly falling in love with the most adorable little gypsy boy on this side of Romania.
His name. . .as we so fondly call him
Ba ba ba Beni and the Jets — everyone sing along Beni! Beni! Beni! Beni and the Jets!
My little, precious, sometimes too much to handle Beni is the keeper of my heart this week here in Viile Tecci. He is the 6 year old son of Sandu, the contact here. Everyday is filled with Kaaaaaatie, Kaaaaatie COME! Come fish, come ball, come play, come color and the oh so wonderful come lake!
Now before I get too into this let me tell you about some of the things Beni and I have done the past couple days. We have spent hours drawing pictures of Mom, Dad and baby animals — Mom and Dad are always kissing. Speaking of kissing everyone on these two teams have been a drive by victim of the kissing rumor — I think I have kissed every male here in this house according to Beni (Please Caroline, Allison and Jimmy don’t send me home!). We have played tag outside, killed multiple fish in a wheel barrel, searched for leeches (and found the biggest nastiest on I have ever seen), watched a dog, watched a chicken, screamed back and forth at each other from the loft and downstairs, tried to balance on a big inflatable workout ball, written out the alphabet (thanks to Weston), I have given him many piggy back rides, he has styled my hair on different occasions, given me “back massages� (he pretty much just punches my back) and of course we hold hands as we walk down the road.
Out of all the crazy activities Beni has asked me to come do I will never forget the day Beni said “Come lake!�
All morning Beni had been asking me “Come lake! Come lake!� and I would always respond “maybe this afternoon�. Well afternoon came and Weston and Leisi were headed to the lake so I figured I would walk on up there with them, swim a little and hang out with the boys. Our walk was pleasant, Beni and I held hands as we walked/ I drug him down the road and we sang Beni and the Jets together. A group of girls walked with us and picked me the most beautiful bouquet of weeds, which Beni eventually threw into the lake screaming “No good� as he chucked them into the water.
After what seemed like an hour we made it to the lake… it looked beautiful and glistened in the sun and then we got closer and noticed along the edge of the lake that there were tons of dead fish just bobbing by the shore. Weston and I kinda looked at each other thinking first, “Why all the dead fish?� and second “I’m not swimming in that!� As we walk along the lake Beni starts picking the dead fish from the water and shoving them into a 2 liter Coke container, we just ignore it and keep walking. We get down to a little pier where plenty of kids are jumping off and having a good time and the boys look at us and say “Its no good� so they lead us further down the lake. Eventually we cross over the spillway and there is no more lake. The boys look at us and say “It is good� we both look down and see the thick layers of slime, algae, grossness that cover the water and the rocks. Before we knew it we were being drug down into the spillway to “swim�.
As I stepped down, well lets say almost slipped and cracked open my head open on the slimy, nasty, gooey, gross covered floor of the spillway Beni came up grabbing onto my arm — He can’t swim. Oh and neither can Leisi ha yea. Beni drags me out into about knee deep water where we find a rock to stand on. Weston and Leisi are out further and Weston is trying to get Leisi to come swim with him — epic fail! As Beni and I man the rock I turn around to find Leisi throwing a dead fish the size of a torpedo right at Beni and I. Of course I scream which attracts even more attention from the dead fish bomber and he comes after me splashing dead fish water in my face, hair and ahhh mouth! That was it! Eventually a man rides by on a bicycle and tells the boys that they should not be swimming in the spillway — its bad for them — of course that’s not at all what Weston and I were trying to tell them the past 20 mins. Kids!
We end up swimming at the pier, collecting more dead fish in the coke bottle — “for the dog� — which got flung all around about 5 mins later, meeting meathead (Weston’s alter ego), getting Leisi to swim and eventually heading home. Before we could leave though Leisi had us convinced that we had to bring a fish home for the dog for dinner. So he finds a fish about the size of a Jory’s shoe (size 17) and we put it in a paper bag. He and Weston are headed down the road and Beni and I are busy scratching his itchy back and applying the lotion that he found in the grass by the lake to it when Leisi comes running down the road waving the dead fish and getting ready to throw it at me. . .what do I do? Scream of course and run like hell in the opposite direction! There is NO WAY I am getting pegged by a dead fish!
