"The Year in Review"

I flipped through “The Year in Review” issue of Time with New Isatou, who is maybe eleven years old. Since I can’t show you the photos, I’ll refer to them by their captions.

“The Year in Review” with Isatou:

Protestors rally in the Wisconsin State Capitol on Feb. 25
“Football?”
“No, government.”

The world roared its approval as Britain’s Prince William…wed commoner Kate Middleton.
 “Girl. Boy.”

…a supporter of Egypt’s President, Hosni Mubarek, rides a camel into Cairo’s Tahrir Square…
 “Horse?”
“It’s not a horse. I don’t know in Pulaar. In English it’s ‘camel.’”
“Look the ‘camel’ is doing this, look at the person, the camel will kick the person…”
Then follows an exciting story—so exciting I couldn’t follow it—about a couple of horses.

Gwyneth Paltrow
“Beyoncé?”
“Who?”
“Beyoncé?”
“Gwyneth Paltrow.”

Jennifer Aniston
“Who?”
“Jennifer Aniston.”
“Jennifer Aniston.”

 Miley Cyrus
“Who?”
“Miley Cyrus.”
“Miley Cyrus.”

Two pages later…
“This is her?” Isatou asks while flipping back and pointing to the photo of Jennifer Aniston.
“No, this is Maria Shriver.”

Battles between Congress and the White House send public approval of the government into free-fall
“Hep. No girls.”

The next page…
“No girls.”

The next page…
Me: “A girl.”
“Ah-ha! I’m happy! And here? Who?”
“Sarah Palin.”
“Sarah Palin.”

More Milestones for U.S. Gays
“They’re happy!”

A boy in the newly independent nation of South Sudan faces the future on July 9
“I’m scared.”

Antigovernment protestors rally in the streets in Nawa, near Dara’a, southern epicenter of the uprising that rocked the nation throughout the year.
“A child.”
“Yes, and here, a child.”
“But no girls.”

More frightening photos (a burning poster of Gaddafi, riots in the U.K.) that we move quickly past. She slows down at the photos of Ai Weiwei and Wael Ghonim, but “No girls.”

Then a sigh of relief because it’s back to Prince William and Kate Middleton.
“Look at her hat,” I say and point to a photo of Princess Beatrice.
“It’s not pretty.”
“But this one is pretty,” I say, pointing to a lavender hat.
“Yes, but all of these…” she waves her hands over the photographs of the hats “are not pretty. All of them have too much foom, foom, foom.” Her hand motions feathers, flowers, curls of ribbon… When a Gambian thinks your outfit has too much “foom foom foom” you know you’ve gone overboard.

Yingluck Shinawatra, Thailand
Me: “She is president.”
“What?”
“She will govern.”
“She is beautiful.”
“Yes.”

Famine Stalks Somalia
Me: “They didn’t eat. They don’t have rice.”
“That’s why they are crying, crying. Here,” speaking now to the mother and child in the photo, and holding out her hand as if offering food, “eat.”

Photos of tsunami, earthquake, hurricane and tornado damage are commented on with sympathetic clucks, but she closes her eyes at the photo of a Texas wildfire. I don’t notice that she’s closed her eyes until I turn to see why she’s struggling to turn the page. Luckily the next page has some innocuous photos of eggs, milk, head lice, a soccer player, a doctor… We discuss our shared dislike of needles.

The Stanley Cup
“He is training.”
“Yes.”
“Over there I saw a man doing this, he sat in a chair and did like this [she bench presses imaginary weights].”
“Where?”
“There.”
(the man, by the way, was not lifting weights, merely holding up a trophy)

A pair of young Mormon missionaries encounter a witch doctor in Uganda in The Book of Mormon
“A konkoran.”
“He put on a lot of straw.”
“Yes.”
“What is ‘konkoran’ in English?”
“I don’t know.”
“They are not in your country. Okay.”

Arianna Huffington
“You.”

Kristen Wiig
“You.” (kiss)

Steve Jobs is not interesting, or maybe just not a girl.

Elizabeth Taylor
“Ah-ha…”
“She is Elizabeth.”
“Lizabeta.”
“Yes.”
She kisses Lizabeta, pretends to scoop her out of the magazine, and then spreads her hands over and down her face, as if concluding a prayer.

Betty Ford
“Her?”
“Betty.”
“Betty.” (kiss)

Warren Christopher and Sargent Shriver get less than passing glances for not being girls.

Amy Winehouse
(kiss) Then, pointing to her lip piercing, “She pierced.”
“Yes.”
Then Isatou tells me a story about a girl who visited from France who had pierced her eyebrow two times, and her nose and her belly button.
“She didn’t stay long?” I ask.
“Just a week. Then she went to her country, I forget which country…America.”

After we finished “The Year in Review” she asked for another magazine so I brought out Glamour, figuring it would have more than enough girls to satisfy her. There must’ve been, because instead of pointing out the girls, she'd point and say, “you” or “me.” It didn’t matter if the model had any resemblance to our actual selves. Sometimes I was the black girl and she was the white girl, but always we were beautiful.