First of all, we live in a fenced compound. Not really a compound but it's big concrete wall around our house. Inside the wall is a small yard, our home, and an outbuilding (which I have not dared to go into).
Our 'street' (and I use that term very loosely....think dirt path) has many many children on it and they sit in the tree beside our wall and look down on us, yelling thing to us. Nice things. I'll come out onto the porch and I'll hear a few sing-songy voices holler "Bonjour, Madame!" It's not irritating...it's kinda cute. They want our kids to come out and play with them and our kids have totally embraced them. Our guys are out there playing soccer and kick-ball and run-down-the-road-pushing-an-old-tire (I even tried that one but I'm much slower than the locals.)
The missionaries here say that the children on our corner are the most aggressive and annoying in the whole town. I don't find them aggressive and annoying but we've only been here one week. We've set boundaries with them but I love chatting with them and making them laugh -- which is super easy to do.
As soon as we come out our gate, there are about 10 children right there. They want to say hello, hold our hands, touch our skin, and especially Teddy's red hair. They all know our kids names and so we're trying to learn theirs. Today I met a Jean, Robert, Emmanuel, Valerie, and a little boy whose name sorta sound like you grunt and say Grant at the same time.
There are a gazillion kids in the area and if they get wind of something fun happening, it spreads like wild fire and suddenly there are 25 kids outside the door.
The other day I was chatting with my neighbour, Odile. Odile is like a gift from heaven. I already love this woman. I mentioned to her that I'd like to paint the toes of the little girls on our corner. She said she would ask their mothers and see what they say. She came back later and said it was okay. So I asked her how we go about doing this. She said I should do it outside my gate and that she would bring 8 or 10 girls over. So Kylie and I dragged an old bench off our porch to just outside our gate, grabbed our nail polish bin, and went out.
The girls sat on the bench and picked a colour they liked. I sat on a towel on the ground and painted. They LOVED blue.
I just prayed for each girl as I wiped off her dirty little feet and painted her toes a pretty colour.
And then....more began to arrive...
This is Odile in the above photo. She is just a super jolly woman. She sat the whole time and watched me paint, translating when I couldn't understand.
A few of the happy customers.
After I had done the children, all the moms wanted it done too! It was getting to be time for us to leave to go for dinner, so I had to wrap up before everyone had been pedicured. By that time I'd done thirty girls and ladies.
300 toes.
30 prayers for our corner of this village.
I love these next two photos. The first one is Kylie and her friends. The second one is me and the other moms. I think you'll be able to tell who is who.
