What's In A Name

There are several groups of kids here with the same name. This can make it just as confusing as when you when to school with four Mikes, three Sarahs, and two Saras. We’ll start with the easiest of the pairs first.

This is Felex and Felex. I only wrote it that way because I don’t know how to write the plural (Feli?) They just finished 11^th and 10^th grade. We can’t say Felex S. because both of their full names start with S, so the one on the left Felex Sepova, and the one of the right is Felex Seleve. Now pay attention, because the pairs will get progressively more confusing.

These are the Isaques. On the left is Isaque Piqueno (pronounced “Isaacy), and on the right is Isaque Grande. Yes, you are correct. Piqueno and grande are not their birth names, we just use those to make it easier. This is where the plot starts to thicken. Isaque Grande has always insisted that his name is actually Isaty and writes that on all his school papers and his clothes (so people know they’re his). Peope made fun of him thinking he doesn’t know how to read or write. This was also absurd because Isaty is not a normal name and the alphabet here doesn’t use the letter ‘y’. Well, a little less then a year ago, Isaque Grande’s family showed up with original birth documents that show his name is indeed Isaty. So now we call them Isaty (with a heavy empasis on the ‘t’ sound) and Isaque Pequeno.

This get weirder as we move on to the Canitos. On the left is Canito Grande (wearing my favorite shirt of all time at the orfonato) and on the left is Canito Pequeno. Well, low and behold, the same time we found out that Isaque was actually Isaty, we found out that these dudes don’t have the same name either. In fact, neither of them are names Canito. The one the left is actually named Ganito. We attribute this to the fact that illiteracy is around 85% for women and his mother just took a guess at how to write his name when he was born. The one on the right is called Maparato. I have no idea what it means in Makuhwa (local language) but is sounds suspiciously like “The Plate” in Portuguese. This is ironic, because he is a ferocious eater, and we’ve taken to calling him “The plate” in English as our nickname for him.

This pair is easiest to tell apart. This is Jose and Joe. Joe is traveling around the world and is stopping here on his way through Nampula for about 3 weeks. To be politically correct, Jose is a kid with special needs. Very special needs. We love him a lot, but he was so distraught when this new person showed up and everybody was also calling his Jose. After about two days he warmed up to it and now has a new best friend. If you still have a hard time noticing the difference between the two, let me illustrate. Jose grande has a giant beard and is an honors student and University of Washington. Jose pequeno refuses to wear anything other than long sleeve shirts (even though is been 100+ F for the last three weeks) and last night during the middle of bible study tried to smack a very agile spider with a very small stick. It took him three minutes of trying, much to everyone’s amusement, but he finally got it.