One morning in Paris on the way to kindergarten, a little girl asks her father “Papa, why do you dance when you walk?”
The question is innocent and serious. Why does her father limp, why can’t he ride a bicycle or a scooter?
Her father feels compelled to answer, to bring back the memories of his childhood in Djibouti and tell her what happened to his leg. It was a place of sunlight and dust and sickness, a sickness that made him different, unique. They called him a skinflint and a runt, but he was the smartest kid in his school.
Author: Abdourahman A Waberi
