Kids in the street

It is the dry season and is raining. It hasn’t rained in a long time, maybe a week or two. I am sitting in the house, working, listening to the rain and enjoying the smell of rain on dry ground. A group of kids is giddily singing outside in the street. It sounds like gibberish but the tune is familiar. I think it must be some rhyme from childhood until I listen closer and hear that the children are shouting Michael Jackson’s “Beat It.” They don’t know English so the syllables are just syllables and not English words, but the tune and the beat and a letter or two here and there are right on.