Next Door Neighbours

_There are theese kids who hang out at our gate all day - Barbara gets very irritated by them, so they aren't supposed to be there. Sometimes when Barbara is staying late at BVA I go out and read books to them. Matrine (properly Matron) is eight and acts like she's the boss of everything. At first that annoyed me, but I realized that was good - she would be able to defend herself if anybody threatened her. The others... I forget their names, but one girl always wore a ripped red t-shirt and tattered baige skirt (probably originally white, but has definitly gotten dirty over years). Actually, Birch just reminded her name was Shamina... Yep, we always sang that song. The third girl always wore her bright pink school uniform. The Bududa school kids aren't scared to wear pink, purple, blue, green, yellow, orange, red, black, gray, brown uniforms - all that schools care about it is that everyone is dressed in matching colours.
    Matrine lives down the hill from our guest house, within view. I'm not sure if ...

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_the other girls are her sisters or not, but they hang around a lot. They LOVE Sabia, and when they get the tinniest scratches that would usually be ignored at home, they come to her for bandages and love. It's really just an excuse for a hug and a kiss, but that sems reasonable to me.
    One time Matrine showed me all her school books - to my surprise, her spelling was okay and her math equations tolerable. I think she was trying really hard to get good marks and succeed.
-Allie