I'm sitting in a parked minibus in Addis with my napping baby while my family shops nearby market stalls with our driver, and as I wait a young boy comes to my open window, offering to sell me an umbrella for a very good price, and despite the overcast sky I'm not especially wanting an umbrella, so I say it's too expensive and he offers it for less, and less, and less, until finally he realizes I truly do not want an umbrella, and so he runs off to one of the market stalls and comes back instead with a necklace, a chunky carved wooden cross on a black string, and in spite of myself my eyes light up and even though I shake my head, it's too late- he knows I want it and so he stands there offering it coaxingly, and I begin wondering if he has a mother, and whether he attends school, and though I'm trying to ignore him and his persistence, he keeps talking and tells me his name is Fikadu and that he is a Christian and asks me if I am, and despite his incorrigible persistence I can see he is intelligent and charming and I think about how I'd really love to bring home that little cross, and how I wouldn't mind helping him, and so I hand him the money and finger my little cross as he smiles at me joyfully and runs off. And as I watch him go I wonder again about his mother.