Saturday

THE FOLLOWING ARE OLD BLOG ENTRIES FROM 2008 and 2009...

WEEK 10

Robbery? Kidnapping? …nope, Fingernail polish!! Today we had a going away party for ourselves and invited all of the neighborhood kids. We ordered them pizza and sodas. After we walked them home, we gave them bags full of the remaining toys we brought with us… nothing exciting, only lip gloss, nail polish, some cheap Oriental Trading games, and activity books. We hugged and said goodbye and walked away. Then, halfway down the street we heard screams. At first we kept walking but then the screams kept coming. We started brainstorming… we’d sent the kids home with the leftover pizza and thought maybe they were getting robbed. We ran back to their house as fast as we could, only to find them still screaming… they’d opened their bags and were delighted by a tube of old used nail polish and some Lip Smackers lip gloss. I will never forget the simple things we take for granted everyday that mean the world to these young girls. The little one with the voice of Mariah Carey gave me another hug and told me that this was the very best day of her whole life.

We went downtown Mbabane today with Bheki to purchase school shoes for the kids we are sponsoring in Elangeni. We found out today that the children get lashes at school from the teachers if they do not have uniforms that are in good shape – dirty clothes, broken shoes, holes in their shirts... Some of the children we are sponsoring had shoes with absolutely no soles. They walk miles each day to school in the same shoes everyday that cost $15. There are many things in Swaziland that blow my mind, but this one is definitely top on my list. These children already have a difficult life, why punish those who cannot afford new uniforms? Why not let them come to school in whatever they can afford? I am sure they are embarrassed enough to not have the uniform matching the other kids… lashing them is entirely unnecessary.

Are you Bruce Lee? Tonight we had the Taiwanese Doctors over to our house for a farewell dinner. Daniel, the Taiwanese chef for King Mswati III, cooked delicious food for us! I LOVE Chinese cabbage!! After dinner we went for a walk and one of the neighbors asked one of the doctors if he was Bruce Lee and if he knew Karate. Hilarious. To make the night even better, the boys brought over their karaoke machine. Too bad that the videos won’t upload on this blogger because I have one of Dr. Ricky doing a little Chinese-accented Frank Sinatra!!

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