Velcro

This morning, I am 23.

I came home last night after a sweet birthday
celebration of puffy chocolate cake (we were
trying to make brownies….but TIA…this is Africa. J)
After some good laughs with the girls I unlocked
my hut and started getting settled for bed. As
I climbed into my little bug-proof tent, I
realized that I had done laundry earlier that day
and that my sheets and blanket were hanging on a
line over at the hospital. Hmmm…no sheets. No
blankets. I was too tired to walk over and get
them. Plus, the hot evening air tricked me into
thinking that it would be hot all night long. I
was wearing my Indian pants/capris and so my
ankles were quite cold. I grabbed the Santa
outfit that my mom had sent at Christmas (good
times) and wrapped it around my feet. Naively,
I hoped I'd sleep all through the night without
any blankets. Wrong. I woke up
freezing. Really freezing. I pulled my arms
inside the body portion of my shirt and tucked
the sleeves behind my back so no drafts of
freezingness would come in. I just tried not to
think about it and I made it to the morning. I
woke up with this bitter bitter taste of Quinine
(malaria pills) in my mouth. Yes malaria has
caught me. I got up and thought, "Emily, that
was a rough night. But hey! You're 23!"
I went outside and looked around. I judged from
the sun that it was about seven in the
morning. I went back into my hut and grabbed my
running shoes. I banged them on the ground to
get all the scorpions out (ok, so none have ever
fallen out but I have seen scorpions in my room
and I can just imagine how much it would hurt if
one stung my toe) and sat down in my doorway to
pull them on. I went over the middle house and
brushed my teeth really good to get rid of the
Quinine taste! As I was putting my toothbrush
back on my shelf I saw a bunch of the shoes which I still had not given out.
So many of you sent shoes and it has been SO fun
slowly distributing them to kids who I know are
going to use them. I want to tell you my thought
process about the shoes right now and I'm a
little ashamed of it but I think it's valuable to
tell. So don't think less of me. J
I got shoes of all kinds in the mail. I got
Nike, Polo Sport, Keds, all different, new and
used. Amazing! Two of the pairs of shoes were
Velcro and older. They were navy blue and just
old school; comfortable, but not sporty. I kept
thinking that I didn't know who to give those to
because all the kids would be wanting the nice
new running shoes and I thought they'd get upset
if they were the ones who got the old school
Velcro ones. (I had forgotten the appreciative
and content attitude of the Africans.)
My dad has always inspired me to not worry about
what other people think. He wears things that
are so old and we laugh at him because his light
blue work jacket is SO old…a complete wreck
(sorry dad J), and our cross country ski set is
from the 70's and our helmets for biking are
ancient…like mushroom style. J But I love that
about my parents. It's not about having the
nicest things….people will always have nicer
things. So this is why I am a bit ashamed that
I looked down on the blue Velcro shoes at all.

Longwinded…I know that was longwinded…sorry.

Anyway.

This morning, when I saw the Velcro, something
clicked and I thought: Kousummia!

Kousimmia led the pack the other evening. Barefoot runners.
We were running little trails on the flat, dry
rice fields when Kousimmia said, "We are all
birds!" He threw his one arm out to the side
birdishly in flight while the other, long ago
amputated down to a knob, flapped under his shirt
sleeve. Everyone followed his lead and for the
next 3 minutes straight we WERE like a stream of
geese flying south, flapping our arms. These
kids didn't even THINK about how silly we looked. They loved it. So did I.

One winged birds are something amazing. This
was the first time I had seen one.
Kousimmia is a flier, even with just one arm.

The kids make fun of Kousimmia sometimes. Some
bully will shake their arm around behind their
body as if it is detached. They'll laugh when he
misses a shot in basketball. But Kousimmia just
seems to shake it all off. He has learned so
much basketball. He runs. He is learning English really well.

At the airport, Alex gave me a small little copy
of the book, "Jonathan Livingston Seagull." It's
about a seagull who gets tired of the role of
seagulls: eating and perching. He wants
something else. He learns that his wings do
actually really amazing things. He puts behind
him the shame that comes when a bird falls and he
learns to do these high-speed dives from
unimaginable heights. He crashes a lot and
soaks himself in the ocean but failure is absolutely nothing to him.

In the seagull book it says, "The trick is to
stop seeing yourself as trapped in a forty-two-inch wing span." YES!

But Kousimmia wanted shoes. He has
been running with out them….but he wanted
them. So this morning when I saw that pair of
Velcro shoes, I thought, this is the reason the Velcro shoes came.
Taking the shoes in hand, I asked
the kids where Kousimmia lived. They directed
me there and I found Kousimmia's family standing
around with their big bull cow. I stood at a
distance because if this bull simply nodded his
head in the wrong direction, he could put a whole
in you with his horns. The littlest boy held the
cow on a rope and I asked him if he wasn't even a
little bit afraid. He said, "No," and at that,
he hugged this massive cow. Then he crawled
down under the cow and squatted between the bulls
two front legs. This kid is fearless.
I told Kousimmia that I had some shoes for
him. He was thrilled and his crooked side smile
just shot forth. I strapped the shoes on
him. They fit perfectly. HE LOVED THEM! Lace
up shoes just wouldn't work for him because he
can't tie them with only one hand. I said, "You
wanna go now?" "Yes!" So we went. Koomakung,
his little brother (a 6 year old) came with
us. With incredible endurance Koomakung didn't
stop once. I couldn't believe it. It was such a good birthday run.
I can't believe I didn't see the value in those
velcro shoes. It seems like I've got it
subconsciously in my head that we have to have
the best best best! The best is not always the
best…and God knew that. Thanks for sending the
shoes. Especially the pair of velcro
shoes. I'll never think badly of Velcro shoes
again. I promise. Love, Emily Star.