you can take them out of Africa...

...but they are still African no matter how much pizza they eat. Saturday morning we had a long drive home from an overnight at Gram's house. As often happens, Joshua started making up a song that included a bunch of nonsense and lots of repetition. A few minutes later Patience started making up a song of her own. A few minutes later, without ever stopping to discuss their plans, they had a little call and response going that went like this:

• P: Do you know Liberia?
• J: Yes, I know Liberia.
• P: Do you know Liberia?
• J: Yes, I know Liberia.

The song continued for quite a while. Eventually Patience stopped singing while Joshua continued. When I was sure he couldn't sing any longer, he sang: All done for now. All done for now. I'm coming stop now.

We had a minute max of silence before Patience started singing again. The new song started with much repetition of the phrase Liberian children. Joshua evidently couldn't allow her to sing alone, so he started up again singing: I'm coming start again... I'm coming sing it again... [insert lots of senseless sounds that Joshua often uses in his songs] and on and on.

I wrote all of this down on the back of an envelope while they were singing so I could get it word for word. I was afraid that you would think I exaggerated otherwise. But seriously, I couldn't make this stuff up.