Pomme Terre

Roon's mother ushered us to sit down.

"Okay... now what?" Awkward, I whispered to Cliff.

"Just enjoy the journey, baby," he whispered back.

Roon introduced another two younger sisters to us, both dressed in oversized t-shirts, torn and patched. The kids sat across us expectantly, with smiles on their faces. "Hello..." I smiled.

Suddenly Cliff thought of something "Faye, I'm going out to get these kids some proper food. Wait for me here?" And he left.

Roon began to entertain his only guest. Out of somewhere he showed me his toys, a set of 5 plastic colored rings and attempted to perform a magic trick, by linking and unlinking the rings. Of course, I could see the slit at the cheap toy, but I thought he performed quite well. He passed the rings to me and indicated that I try.

I gave it a few attempts with much blunder, to which, Roon's sisters were laughing heartily. We were connected not by words or communications, but by smiles, body languages and laughter. Roon's sister spoke to me in Tagalog, with much child-like simplicity assuming that their new friend totally understood them. They need education, I thought sadly, they cannot stay in the house day in day out and live their lives like these... but they seemed to be pretty happy.