Probably the most important discovery we made during the trip to Africa was Maia's love for socializing. From the first to the last moment of the trip she was immensely excited to see people and communicated with them in all possible ways. Mostly by smiling.
Her first air flight was her first chance to see about 100 persons seated closely together and staring in one direction. Fascinating. Maia was so impressed with all the faces, that she entirely forgot to cry or complaint about certain inconveniences she had to endure.
The smiling journey continued in South Africa. In Stanford Maia enjoyed the noisy interest of about 10 women at the same time. She was so pleased that she did not even notice our absence with Emese from the crowd - giving us a good chance to finish our dinner undisturbed.
In Cape Town she started smiling in the streets - at every passer by whose eyes she could catch. Hanging on my breast in the big red scarf, with a cute little sun hat and a permanent smile, she attracted a lot of attention, mostly from women. I felt quite awkward, receiving smiles and unexpectedly friendly remarks of the kind "How cute you are!" and "Hellow sweet" from total strangers. At some point I started considering returning the compliments to the most attractive ones and even discussed the idea with Emese. She found it brilliant.
Maia was so happy during the trip that we were a bit afraid how would she feel back home. Indeed, after our return Emese said Maia was not very glad to spend time with one only admirer alone - be it her own mother. Naturally that made my appearance very precious for her - and according to Emese she started signaling impatience for it. While eating, for example.