"What is wrong with me?!" I thought as I hurriedly scurried by the aisles while pushing back tears.
---
My mind took me back to a rock pile in the slums of Soweto where I'd sat to rest from digging trenches that would be filled with concrete to form the footings of the schoolhouse we were building. A group of the 5th year girls were on break and came to sit by me. Selma, one of my favorite girls, sidled up beside me as the girls and I began to talk about their school and studies and the types of things 14 year old girls talk about. I noticed Selma twirling a pencil in her fingers that was nearing the end of its' life. It couldn't have been more than 2 inches long.
"Your pencil is getting awful short Selma! Does the school give you a new one when it runs out?" I asked probing to see how that kind of thing worked at the school she attended.
"Well the school gives you only one at a certain time…" she offered up and then trailed off.
I prodded more, "And then do you get another when it's gone. Or what do you do?"
"Well if it runs out, then you will have to borrow someone else's each time you want to write. And then you get a new one when the school issues them again. Or if your parents can afford it, they buy you a new one."
Afford a pencil? The idea didn't even make sense to me. Afford a pencil? It sounded so absurdly foreign to me…
---
I was now passing the school supplies on my way back through the store.
"Hold it together Brittany!" I urged myself as I deliberately quickened my step past them blinking away the emotion.
---
Again I was back in Kenya. In a small classroom with the nursery-age children. The drab cement brick walls gave way to a doorway and single large open window that allowed ample sunlight into the classroom. Each of the little wooden desks sat three to four of the adorable "nursery" children ranging from two and a half to three years old. Their little eyes staring at me would light up as I made eye contact with them. Some shyly smiling back, others waving with delight. I sat at the teacher's desk with her as she handed me a stack of small composition books.
"Right now they are working on copying patterns. We need to write in each of these books the pattern that they need to copy and then we give it to them and they copy it below," she said as she opened to a blank page of the book on the top of the pile and signaled for me to begin.
"Boy this would be easier with a copy machine!" I thought to myself as I put my pencil on the page of the first book and began to write.
"Copy Pattern." I wrote at the top of the page and drew a zig zagged line just below the instruction then grabbed the next book as the teacher called out each student's name to come get their book and begin to trace. Thirty or so books later, I began to roam the room to see how they were doing on their copying. Some had perfect zig zags traced over and over again down each line of the page. Others were struggling with the task and I would lean down, grab their small hand in mine along with the pencil and help them make the sharp pattern across a couple of lines until they understood the motion necessary to create such a pattern. I noticed some of the children didn't have a book.
"Why don't some of them have composition books?" I asked the teacher as I finished helping the last of the children.
"Some have parents that can't afford it," she said matter-of-factly.
"So what do they do if they don't have one?" I asked even though I was pretty sure I already knew the answer.
"They just don't do the assignments," she said as she collected a book from a child that had just finished.
---
Phew! I made it past the school supplies. They had told us it would be hard coming home and answering questions about how our trip was and acclimating to life back at home and I wasn't sure how much I believed them. Until I got home. Now I couldn't even make it through a trip at Wal-mart?! What a wreck!
Strolling past the women's section I turned the corner and headed up the aisle to begin my grocery shopping at the back of the store and work my way forward. Girls apparel. Of course. Of course I would tear up at girls apparel. Why wouldn't I?!? The racks and racks of purple and pink striped overalls, denim dresses with pink bows, Hannah Montana shirts to the hearts content and glitter-studded jeans wracked my heart with guilt and sadness!
---
The last day of our work at the school in Nairobi, we drove up to a wonderful sight of the entire school outside dancing and singing. They had all come out to give us a warm welcome as we started the day. I was tired and emotionally drained as I stood back and watched. I wanted to take it all in so I would never forget it. I wanted to freeze that memory in my brain so that when I came home I would remember Kenya as I had experienced it. Not the glamour of a photograph, but the raw reality of what I had experienced - the smells, the sounds, the everyday Soweto slums that we had experienced.
One of the little girls had her back turned to me and I noticed all of the buttons on her dress had fallen off so that the back of the dress hung open. She couldn't wear a different dress as the one she had on was her school uniform and probably the only one she had. She wore a t-shirt underneath to remedy the missing buttons. I looked around. There were lots of missing buttons on dresses, tattered sleeves, holes in shoes, thread-bare shirts.
---
Those children wouldn't be able to comprehend this warehouse full of school supplies and clothes just as I couldn't fathom what it would mean to not be able to afford a pencil. Walking past those aisles of school supplies and clothing symbolized to me everything those children would never have. As I hurriedly tried to usher these thoughts out of my mind as to not become overly emotional (because really who isn't totally creeped out by a woman crying in the little girls' section of a Walmart Super Center?), visions of their beautiful smiles and warm eyes filled my mind. Their voices filled my head…
---
"Do you sing?" one of the girls asked me.
"I do actually. I sing a little," I answered shyly.
"Sing something for us! Sing something for us!" the small group of girls chimed in together.
"Ok fine I'll sing something for you, but then you all have to sing for me!" I said as I racked my brain for a song to sing.
Anyone who knows me knows that I sing all the time. All day long. But the moment you ask me to sing something for you, my mind goes blank. I don't know what to sing.
"I'm trying to think of a song," I admitted with a slight blush of embarrassment at taking so long to find something to sing. I could think of church songs - lots of church songs, but that was about it. This was my first day in Nairobi and I didn't want them thinking I was some sort of weirdo coming in and singing about God.
"Whitney Houston!" one of them offered up.
"Ok! I know a song of hers," I said. I began singing, "If I could stay…" I sang the first verse and chorus of I Will Always Love You then turned to them, "Ok you guys have to sing now."
It took them less than 5 seconds to choose a song and begin singing. It was a song about God. About His goodness. About His mercies. About His love.
The longer I was in Kenya, the more I realized the Kenyans were not ashamed to sing about God. At almost every school or orphanage we went to, they would sing about how great God was and how wonderful His love was. People who had nothing thanking Him for everything. It was eye opening.
As little as they possess, they have more direction and understanding than many people will ever experience. As I walked away from the girls apparel section, I laughed at myself, "I can't believe I was getting teary-eyed at Wal-mart over pencil sharpeners and Hannah Montana shirts!"
I have a dichotomy of feelings for those sweet African children. On one hand I feel sorrow for everything they lack; everything that we are blessed with here that some of them will never know. On the other hand, and more importantly, I am inspired by what they hold dear; everything that they know that some will never understand. As sad as I may feel for their lack in material goods, I am inspired by their richness in spiritual goods. Their belief in God and their faith make them far richer and far more prepared than any Walmart school supplies or Hannah Montana shirt could ever offer.
