The Little Sunbeam

I had asked to interview his parents about their ‘traditional produce’ initiative. They led me into a chilly ‘best room’ and said, there is a problem with the other room, because their little son had a problem with his legs and this is why a teacher came everyday to give him lessons at home. He would have to have this plaster on both legs for about one and a half years, because there was a major problem with his bones. At the level of both his feet, the plaster was attached to a kind of wooden stick of about 70 cm. False diagnoses had caused that this had not been remedied when he was a toddler. I asked what he was doing with his time. They told me: watching TV, reading a bit, playing with his brother and with friends that come to visit. So later on it got too cold in the first room, and the teacher had finished for the day, so I got to meet this child. He was an energy bundle, very loveable, and apparently very happy. He asked to see the world map to determine where Britain was, and Luxie and thought it was very far away. He asked how I had come, with the plane or with the boat. His next question was whether I had read the paper in the plane. He was a bit disappointed to hear that I usually sleep in planes (yes, some kind of narcolepsy confined to pressure cabins, and, more generally, but less reliably so, public transport of various kinds). He wanted to know how many engines the plane had and whether I had paid for the petrol. He asked me what I was doing here anyway, and I attempted to explain. And then he made my heart melt, saying: ‘How do you say Alexandru in Luxembourgish?’