The Children

Philippians 4:8-9

 



 

 

This is Ellen. She was posing for every camera, while

 the women's conference was going on.

 

 

If you watched the video I sent, it is no exaggeration that hundreds of children were everywhere every time we drove up, and they were chanting 'azungu'.  A-ZUN-GU, A-ZUN-GU!!  The children would surround the door that opened to each of our buses, to get their own azungu.  There were hundreds of them, and only 59 of us, so we got no less than two.  They would immediately ask up dzina lako ndani?  Which means What is your name?  And then you would tell them, and they would continue to say your name over and over to get it right.  Every time we got out of the buses, our 'kids' would find us and remember our names. Even the people who have gone on this trip before, the kids they had a year prior would remember them.  My name is pronounced DAh-knee-KA. I felt bad having such a hard name for them to remember.  Don't get me wrong not all of them have easy names, but my kids names were Evelyn, and Yvette.  Then some days I had Nicole, or Ellen. I never got a hard name.

 

These girls were showing us how to shuck corn.  After 30 minutes our hands were sore

or starting to bleed, so they would start the hardest part and give us the end to finish.

 

 

These girls were from a different village and did not really know what our phones were,

but figured them out quickly/

 

 

 

They love to play, they love to smile, they love to hold your hand(s), they love to dance, and dance for you, they love to pet your weird hair, and white skin. They do all this while walking bare foot through a rough ground, and lots of them are carrying another child with them, on their hip or back. They help each other out just like the women do.  If one was tired of carrying a baby another little girl would be right there to help carry them. If a child was crying, they were right there to console them. If you were doing something they have never seen, they wanted to know how. I taught one little girl how to hand sew, while a bunch of us were sitting under a tree and sewing clothes with holes.  If you were dirty, they would clean you off, if a bunch of ants were on you they would pick them off of you. (this actually happened a lot, what I found odd though was, no one was bit by an ant not once, we all had them on us at some point, I assume that the ants in Malawi did not evolve to biting, since they are not killed with poison, like they are in America, so they had no need to adapt). By the second week, if there were ants on me I didn't even care, one, cause they weren't going to bite me, and two, because a child that was with me would find it and take it off, usually before I noticed.

 

All these girls got in a line and were clapping, dancing and singing. They would go down the line and dance for us.

 

 

 

One of the biggest things they love is getting their picture taken.  And to take pictures with your phone.  And they all know how to use the camera on your phone, they know how to swipe to look at the next picture, they know how to flip the camera so they can see themselves.  This was fun for us and them, it could also get a little heated, sometimes you had to put the phone away cause they would start fighting over who was getting their picture taken next.

 

This little girl had some spunk.  She wanted to show off and she did.