Say Hello to My Little Friend

I am dedicating this post to James Tricarico. Eldest son of Pastor Al and Lorrie Tricarico. Some background information, James is twelve, although if you ask him he’ll generally try to make you think he’s 13. He is about 5’6”, thin, with size 11 feet. He runs a business selling airtime to the locals for their cell phones. The thing is though Pastor Dave funds it so James makes 1% of whatever he sells. If he sells 1000 shillings worth of air time he gets to keep ten. That’s less than 5 cents folks. 

James has earned several nicknames since I’ve been here. The second week we were here we called him mud. We were laying bricks for the first banda and every time Craig needed cement he would yell “mud!” and James would come running with a shovel full and fill up his basin. During the third week we were here we started calling him princess because one day at lunch he was wearing the birthday tiara. The birthday tiara is a little, jewel encrusted; tacky plastic crown that looks like it came from the dollar store. Whosever birthday it is has to wear the tiara. I have since hidden the tiara from James so he won’t destroy it before his birthday comes. Last week we called him James Promise Breaker because he left in the morning to go deal with some costumers and didn’t come back to the job site even though he said he would be back.

James has some unique vocabulary. He always calls me a hoser when I make fun of him. Also when I do something he disapproves of or when he is angry with me he calls me a bad cookie. Bobby Wright came up with that phrase. Something about the cookie monster? His favorite insult for me is to call me a person in a really disgusted voice though. He also says “no joke man” very earnestly when he is telling me something. When he talks about something that has been cobbled together he calls it jewhi-collie which I’ve never heard before. He also quotes a song whoch goes “hold on, wait up, put a little love in it”.

Perhaps the funniest thing about James is how jumpy he is. I think this is because when he was little his sisters made him be the princess whenever they played games because he was the shortest. He will jump at anything. The really funny part is that you can scare him again and again over the same thing right in a row. Riding back to the house for lunch one day Dan scared him three times in a row by pretending to throw his water from his bottle on him even though the lid was securely sealed. My favorite time was when we were talking and he caught a glance of the back of the chair he was sitting in and jumped about a foot in the air. 

James is a really great kid though. He’s a lot of fun and despite his young age is very mature and fun to be around. He reminds me of my brother and he has become a good friend.