I thought it would be fun to publish a collection of favorite memories from our trip to Africa. Here are two memories written by two of my kids. I'll publish more as they come. :)
I step off the cool, air-conditioned bus, squinting in the bright African sun. There are a few village kids watching our group shyly as we make our way to the large pile of bricks and begin passing them down our human assembly line. After a sweaty hour or so hauling bricks, I take a quick water break and notice the growing group of kids again, just watching. A few other volunteers and I make our way over to say hi and high-five the little ones. Before I know it, a little girl grabs my hand and we start to throw a ball around, more kids joining in as we play. I see a small baby strapped to the back of his (also young) sister and hold my arms out to hold the baby, hoping the little girl would be able to go play without having to feel responsible for her brother, even just for a few minutes. And a few minutes was all it was before the baby started crying and his sister immediately came back to take him.
The next few hours are a blur of “patty-cake,” nail polish, and “duck, duck, goose.” Everything we do attracts more and more kids to play with us. Others though just sit and watch, laughing at me when I slip every time I run around the circle for “duck, duck, goose.” When I go to rest under the tree, some of the moms come up to me and try to talk in broken English. I can’t understand what they’re saying, but they keep laughing and stroking my hair and my arm, so I think they must have just been wanting to touch a “mzungu”.
As we leave the village, I reflect on what I just experienced. I keep thinking about the joy they have. They don’t have much. Pretty much just basic necessities. That’s why they got so excited even to just get a single crayon and coloring sheet. They didn’t need stuff to keep them happy. They had each other. They had us.
Written by a child who wishes to remain anonymous:
It's hard to imagine needing to overcome such simple and yet overwhelmingly important obstacles like how to collect enough water for your family or what to do with the baby while you cook dinner; yet unfailingly locals we interacted with approached these with a smile and word of encouragement to us, when by all accounts it should have been the other way around. The particularly strong example of this that comes to mind is a boy who lived in the village where we were building a school. He came up to me and wanted the same things all the other kids wanted- a hug, a shoulder ride, even just a smile or to hold our hand for a bit. But after we had introduced ourselves to all the kids and split off to work on different projects for the day, this young boy followed us around wherever we went and wanted nothing more than to help us with our work. It's so easy to look at the people we were helping and see them based on what they didn't have, but the more time we spent with them the more I realized that the list of intangibles they possessed was not only much longer, but far more valuable.
Stay tuned...more memories to come!
