Goldfish and Gorillas

What do a goldfish and a gorilla have in common? Besides the first letter of the animals’ names, they both make me laugh.

I was waiting for the chiva and chatting it up with some of the ladies in town. One of them cleans the school and mentioned that she finally cleaned the fish tank in one of the classes. It was growing things on the glass, so she gave it a good cleaning with the typical Panamanian cleaners. Then she filled it back up and popped the fish in to swim in the clear tank. The fish decided it would show off a new stroke: the dead man’s float.

We laughed at the error… But then one of the other ladies who works for a family in Potrerillos piped in with her own fishy story. She cleaned the fish tank at her place of work with the same result that she demonstrated with her cheeks puffed out and her once flapping hands coming to a rest at her sides. The family, like any good parents, bought new fish for the tank. The next time she cleaned the tank, the fish floated once again. And the next time. And the next time. Five rounds of fish later, the mother of the household finally let her know that she really only needs to clean the tank with water instead of the harsh cleaners that don’t come out of the gravel bottom. Lol. I think I would have mentioned something after the first fish flopped.

Anyhow after I took the chiva back up to my house, I played soccer with the girls outside. We started off on the patio, roughly three feet by five feet for the four of us. Since obviously that was a little tight for a real game, we continued out onto the yard. Not much of my community is flat, so our field was once again limited. All I had to do was stand in place and kick the ball from one goal through the next. The girls chased after the ball when it went into the corn or by the pigs.

They eventually took off their shoes, and since I didn’t, I retrieved the ball. I ran after it, trapped the ball, and dribbled it back. Nothing to it, right? I’m playing with little kids. Well, that’s what I thought at least. The littlest one at five years old starts waving her arms in front of her like a gorilla, jumping up and down, and parroting, “Choing, choing, choing.” The middle one at seven years old then joined in with the same arm motions. Hmmmm.

The little one then asked me, “Why do they do that?” I was laughing too hard to reply by that point! Need I explain to them that when you don’t wear a sports bra, they bounce? Lol Oh little gorilla girls, you’ll learn.