Personal Space and "Pipi"

I’m living a life in which my personal space is a lot less personal.

It’s not uncommon in East Africa for a man to grab another man’s hand when he wants to have a conversation. I’ve found myself walking through town on numerous occasions hand in hand with an African gentleman. I’ve sat on minibuses where every conceivable space is crammed full of human flesh. People wedge in at your sides and on your lap and you thrust your hands in your pockets to occupy the remaining space inside before someone else does.  I’ve had kids in villages nuzzle against my arms and legs as I’m sitting at a meeting or sharing a meal with them. I’ve had little children with runny noses blow them on my pant legs and shirt. They’ve run their hands through my hair and beard; they’ve played with my shoes, my jacket, and my watch. I’ve caught them listening for my heartbeat, smelling my skin, even licking me.

My kids aren’t immune. The children in the villages we visit rarely see someone with white skin, and almost never a child. So when Elliana and Ian flop down out of the Land Cruiser at one of our meetings they are instant celebrities. The children want to feel Elliana’s hair, the long brown curls so different from the close-cropped hair of little girls her age in Tanzania. They press their heads up against Elliana’s and wrap her hair around their own, pretending for a moment that they’ve got long smooth locks. They pull on Ian’s cheeks and pinch at his skin. When he goes to the bathroom they try to sneak peaks at him to see if he looks the same as them under his clothes. At first our kids struggled with this, but now it’s commonplace. They simply brush the hands away when they’ve had too much and go back to playing. While occasionally Ian pushes back or screams louder than he should to be left alone, for the most part, it’s just a new normal.

At least it feels normal, most of the time.  

One afternoon, I found myself sitting in another of our village meetings. Because we travel to visit each of the students in our program at least twice a year, we’re often sitting in tiny churches interviewing or taking photos of kids. This particular day I was in the Arusha town church. The building itself is a simple affair, a singular room with a concrete floor and twenty or so rows of hard wooden benches. We had finished our work for the day and were preparing for lunch.

I sat next to a young man named Jonathan as they brought over plates full of spiced rice, a yellow tinged dish topped with chunks of fatty meat and cabbage. Jonathan was almost eight years old, one of 6 children being raised by a single mother. His father passed away when he was still young. As he nestled into the crook of my arm I took notice of the scars that ran along the top of his head and through his hairline. I learned they came at the hands of bullies at school and a bully of an older brother. His smile, though his teeth are stained brown from the water he drinks, was electric, and he laughed constantly as we ate. He was practically on top of me as we shoveled the rice barehanded into our mouths.

As we finished lunch I reached into my bag and handed Jonathan a lollipop. We had brought bags of suckers for the kids, and the rest of the staff handed out one to each of the students as they finished their meal. I watched as Jonathan eagerly went to work tearing off the paper and shoving the candy in his mouth. For five minutes he feverishly and silently sucked away at the lollipop as I packed up my things.

I was finishing putting the last several things in my bag when I felt his hand on my shoulder. He still had the candy in his mouth as he motioned for me to lean in. There was something he wanted to ask me. I turned my face away from him and lowered my ear towards him so that I could hear more clearly in the crowded church. He leaned in and moved the lollipop to the side of his mouth, where it jabbed into the surface of my cheek. I could feel his breath on my face as he leaned in close to my ear, the entirety of which now felt enveloped by his lips. His voice reverberated through my eardrum. When I pulled away after his whisper a long strand of drool and slobber still connected my ear with his mouth, it hung in space before snapping and falling into my ear and along my cheek.

The question he asked me?

In Swahili: "Naomba pipi nyingine."

The English translation: “Can I please have another lollipop?”

I laughed, dropped my ear to my shoulder to wipe away the spit and reached in my bag for another sucker. He grabbed it eagerly, gave me a hug, and then ran off to show his friends. I grabbed my stuff and dashed to the car before another flock of kids could find me.

When I became a dad for the first time and dove into the chore of changing diapers and burping babies, I’d often find myself the target of errant spit-up and projectile baby waste. If you’ve had children you can relate to the initial waves of disgust that sweep over you when the contents of a diaper find their way outside the confines of that thin cloth. But over time, all of the things that perhaps we found disgusting or uncomfortable at the beginning don’t really seem to matter that much anymore. Literally and figuratively, we just wipe it away. The tiny child that you’ve grown to love means much more than a small bit of physical discomfort.

The same holds true when you’re wiping away the drool of a little Tanzanian boy who wants nothing more than to feel loved and to escape into the few minutes of joy that something as small as a sucker can provide.  

Being able to personally watch the lives of hundreds of children being transformed through the work of Children of Promise makes any bit of discomfort seem miniscule. And knowing that around the world thousands of children are being given not only small moments of joy like Jonathan with his sucker, but huge life changing opportunities through their sponsorship, makes everything we do worthwhile. 

As always, if you’d like to be a part of changing the life of a child through the ministry of Children of Promise, please join us at echildrenofpromise.org