Greeting, Africa Style!

It’s the little things
That remind me
Of how blessed I am
To live where I am
Doing what I do

Today we went out
For one of our walks

In the evenings
Sometimes after supper
We get all the kids together
And go on a walk
Around the neighborhood

As long as it isn’t raining
The evenings are such a nice time

It is cool
The sun is getting ready to set
So the clouds are beautiful

Since we make a bit of a habit
Of walking in the evenings
We are getting to know
Some of the neighbor children

A lot of them have been quite shy
But there are always a few
Who get “brave”
And want to run up
And greet us

Here when you greet
You shake hands
With your right hand

There is one little boy
In particular
Who always is so excited
To see me and run up
And greet me

He is about four
I wish I had a picture
He is so cute
:)

Anyway
Today was not an exception
As soon as he saw me
He came running

He put out his hand
But he tried to “greet me”
With his left hand

Bad manners ;)
So I told him no
Pointed to his other hand
And told him to greet me
Properly

Unfortunately
Four is a bit young
To know English here
So he was trying to figure out
What it was I wanted

What he decided
Was his hands were too dirty
And he needed to clean them

Now understand
His hands were SO dirty
But no dirtier
Than his clothes

His little face scrunched up
As he examined his hands
Then he started to scrub
Up and down
On his shirt
Which was just as dirty
As his dirt encrusted hands

Then he examined his hands
.....

Nope still too dirty

So he took it to the next level
And started rubbing them
Up and down
On his jean shorts

Another examination

From what I could tell
If anything
They had just gotten dirtier
But since I wasn’t too concerned
About whether his hands
Were clean or not
It didn’t really bother me

Then he looks up
From his examination
Of his now “clean” hands
And gave me a brilliant smile
Showed me his
“Properly cleaned” hands
And offered me
His grubby little hand

I took it
Left hand or not
How could I not
:D

I was once again reminded

I love Africa :)

Thank you Jesus!