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Thursday, January 12, 2012

manicures

While in Uganda we were busy working on getting everything done that we wanted to during our trip. We had so many plans we had to accomplish, painting 3 buildings, building a playground, visiting other schools and families, clearing fields for soccer games and gardens, and teaching. We almost felt overwhelmed with everything we felt had to be done but our departure day was getting close. Kim, our trip organizer/leader, told us "we need to take breaks to spend with time with the kids, Or we will feel like all we did was work. The kids were the real reason we are here."
So one day a few of us got some nail polish and walked over to the children's boarding house.

We asked all the girls to line up and pick a color. They surrounded us!!


Then I noticed as I was painting nails that the child I was painting was a boy!!! I laughed and I tried to explain finger nail polish was only for pretty girls. but the boys just smiled and held out their hands to me. so what was I supposed to do?
Then after what felt like an hour of painting 50 or so children's fingers, the line was not getting smaller! Where were all these children coming from? Then I saw a little girl running over to the bathroom and wiping off her nail polish and the turning right back around to get back in line for more!!!
I realized the children didn't care what color they had or if it was not something boys do. They just wanted attention. they wanted to have that one on one interaction with us.


I remembered my daughter Julia and all the times she asked me to paint her nails and how there were times I told her I was to busy. There was housework to get done or dinner to cook, phone calls to make, pictures to edit. I could probably think of a million other reasons I couldn't stop for five minutes and give my daughter that one on one attention. make her feel important and special. Then I thought about Kim's words again:
"we need to take breaks to spend with time with the kids, Or we will feel like all we did was work. The kids were the real reason we are here."

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