July 10, 2007 –
Anybody who has seen African children should have a sense of the amount of spirit for living they have. Even though they don’t live in great houses or have really clean clothes, they still love life. We in Canada have heard it a million times: don’t take things for granted. Some people still don’t understand. A meeting with these children in Rwanda would quickly turn their attitude around.
Scott, Kristen, Garrett and I walked down to the Caplaki artists’ village to do some shopping. Along the way, two kids poked their heads out the door and yelled hellos to us. We said hello back and took some pictures. Then a group of six or so children came running to us, hugging us and shaking our hands. And when they saw the cameras, they got ridiculously excited. So I borrowed Kristen’s camera to take a picture of them. I counted to let them know, took the picture and showed them. They LOVE seeing the results on that little LCD screen. They laughed and squealed in delight. Then I got them to pose with us while Scott snapped a picture of all of us. And they swarmed him to see it.
Finally we got on our way again but they came with us, holding our hands as we walked further down the road. We would’ve kept going but a Rwandan man (Liberato, I think his name was) told us we should say bye and tell them to go back to their homes. And that’s what we did. Awesome experience. Wish our society in Canada allowed that but you know how creepy some people can be… creepy AND paranoid.
Shopping list:
2 beautiful paintings
carving of two giraffes embracing
carving of Africa
carving of Rwanda
All for about $20!
andrewng.media 