Children

  I have decided to do something a little different. Along with writing about my journey in cooking African foods, I thought that I would also use this blog to show parts of Africa through my eyes.  One of the things that always brings joy to my heart is little children and the African children that I saw and meet brought lots of joy to my heart.  They always seemed to be happy, smiling and playing even thought they seemed to have so little, at least in my eyes.
  As we traveled through the streets of different cities in Togo, often was heard shouts of "Yevu, yevu" and small children stopping what they were doing and pointing at me.  Yevu means white and many of them have never seen a white person or at least not very many of them.  They were as fascinated with me as I was of them, we had lots to learn from each other.  I had children wanting to touch my hair ~ I am sure they had never seen so much gray in their life, they wanted to hold my hand and I had some children scared of me, running behind there mother's skirts.  Shortly after we were married we were shopping at a market in Kpalime when this girl probably around 8 or 9 took my hand and pointed at my wedding rings, I thought at first that she was liking my rings but no she was scolding me for wearing 3 rings instead of one and telling me that I need to take two of them off :).
  On my first trip to Togo, we toured many schools.  The children were always happy to see us and were very gracious of the gifts we gave, even though I felt we gave them so little.. I had pencils, erasers and notepads to give them.  The graciously accepted which ever one that I gave them with a "Merci".  I always wonder what would happen if I went to a school here and handed out pencils, erasers or notebooks ~~ I am thinking they would be thrown back at me.  These children have so little, yet are so happy with what they have, I think a lot of us could and should take lessons from them.
   I am going to leave you with some pictures that I took at a primary school.

this was when we first got there... they had to check over the wall to see us.

these children are around 4 years old and they were singing us a song.

one of my favorite pictures.  I love the determination she is showing.

they weren't sure if they should watch their teacher or us.

    I hope you like this small glimpse into the school and you see the hardship that they have attending school. Not all children have school books, so they need to share and they also share their desk with at least one other student but there may be up to four students at one desk.

                            Til next time <3 <3 <3  Marlys