I had been wondering lately what should be the politically correct way to describe a person whose skin colour is, well, African. Except that African is not really a colour. Here is how Maia taught me the answer.

Last Friday after school Maia and her best friend Jessy spent an hour in the playground, accompanied by Ivan, Jessy's mom Carolyne and me. When the sun began to slowly set behind the brown roofs of Marston, we started walking home. While the group was still together Maia and Jessy started calling each other food names:
"You are a... tomato," Jessy shouted. "And you are... a carrot," Maia screamed. "And you are... a hot dog!" Jessy replied.

"Jessy, don't say this. And stop calling each other... names!" Jessy's mom Carolyne interrupted. There sure was something very wrong with calling someone a hot dog, although I wasn't sure what. So I decided to show diplomacy:

"Jessy is your friend, isn't she, and you like her? So why not calling her nice things? Like: you are nice as a flower; or you are sweet as an apple."

Maia did not take long: "Jessy, you are brown as chocolate", she shouted!

Yes, this is certainly something that Maia likes a lot. Chocolate! And this is what Jessy's skin looks like. And her mom is from Ghana. "Did you hear that?" Jessy's mom said excitedly: "She said Jessy is brown as chocolate", with a great shining smile on her face. I sure did. Long live children diplomacy!