Taylor and the tooth fairy

Picture is of Maria (front teeth missing), Khadija and Elizabethe who is a teacher's helper here at the village.

Notes on Becoming a Tooth Fairy (from a 23 year old volunteer, Taylor)

On Sunday night when I returned to the Serengeti house after dinner, the boys’ room was a buzz with talk of the tooth fairy. Simone had lost a tooth and had placed it under his pillow in anxious hopes that the tooth fairy would exchange it for a present. Thank goodness I had overheard other volunteers discussing tooth fairy protocol, because ‘lessons on becoming a tooth fairy’ aren’t included in the volunteer manual I received when I arrived! It wasn’t until 4:40am the following morning that I remembered I was in charge of getting the tooth fairy gift and secretly depositing it under Simone’s pillow in the middle of the night. Frantic that I’d forget and Simone would be crushed, I set my alarm for 5:50 am. (As if Simone, who is 9 years old doesn’t already have suspicions about the tooth fairy.)Seeing as this was my first time as a tooth fairy, I thought out my plan carefully. Waking up at 5:50 would give me enough time to find a tooth fairy gift, dress in some bank-robber-esque attire, and perform the exchange right around wake-up time (which would provide the perfect cover story, should I get caught in the act). The biggest challenge would be the sheer number of boys, which I thought of as ‘landmines’, in the room. All eight of them were just waiting to be woken up by the slightest noise or rise in air temperature. Not only did I need to be careful enough not to disturb Simone (did I mention he sleeps on the top bunk?) I couldn’t wake up the other 7 boys either. What a challenge!So, dressed in dark brown pants and a maroon hoodie pulled over my head (silhouetted curly hair would totally give me away), I crept barefoot into the boys’ room. I turned down the kerosene lamp - for cover of darkness. Tiptoeing across the room to Simone’s bed, I stepped up on the frame to reach the top bunk. My feet were less than 12 inches from Boaz’s face. ‘What would I do if he woke up now’ I thought. It was as if the worldwide future of the tooth fairy rest on my shoulders. Luck would have it that he was facing me, so there was no way I was getting the tooth from under his pillow. I slipped a rubber ball under Simone’s covers – the only remotely masculine toy in the ‘tooth fairy trunk’. How in the world did my mom make it through 28 teeth x 2 kids! Tooth fairy nightmare! I carefully climbed down from the bed, tiptoed out of the room and straight to my bedroom to change into different clothes. More fairy strategy - cover your tracks.Within minutes of wake up, the boys were shouting that the tooth fairy had come. Success. I spent most of breakfast hoping that no one else would lose a tooth for a while. Then, Happy came out of the bathroom with something in her hand. She proudly opened her fist, revealing a molar, while happily tilting her head back to show me its former home. Round two…