the other side of the box

On Wednesday, I had the opportunity to hand out some of the shoeboxes that are filled for Operation Christmas Child through Samaritan's Purse. My roommate and some of her 4th grade students partnered with a church to hand out boxes to some of the Sunday School students. I have always enjoyed filling the boxes in the States so I was excited for this opportunity.

It was really so global. Half of my roommate’s students were there, and they represented 6 birth countries: US, Canada, Nigeria, Korea, China, and Russia. The boxes came from the US and Canada, and here they were being distributed to Senegalese children.

There was a little program, talk, and then the boxes were handed out. It’s hard to describe in words really. It started out with about 30 people there. It was done outside because the church meets in a garage. Then it kept growing and growing and growing. That’s what happens here. If there is an event happening, especially with Toubabs, people just come.

It was a great lesson in culture as most of the kids quietly walked up to get their box and they returned to their place without opening it. I learned here that they don’t really show emotion when it comes to things like this. You could tell they were pleased though.

We ran into a small problem towards the end…Perhaps you have already figured it out.

You see, the church had a set number of boxes for their kids. Other kids kept coming to watch (including one of my Jenga partners from the center I volunteered at over Spring Break). There was one box left. While happiness and joy may not be readily expressed in public among the Wolof, aggression is (not mean aggression if that makes sense). The poor 4th graders got pinned against the cars as kids kept trying to grab the last box. We all made it out in one piece.

A good reminder:
I’ve mentioned several times how I “forget” I live in Africa. At first, I kept thinking that the shoe boxes are packed for children in poverty so I wondered why they were being distributed here. You, being the reader may be thinking, “duh Annie. You are living in one of the poorest countries in the world.” That is true, but when I go about my day-to- day business, I forget about it. It doesn’t hit me until I take a step back. For example, I looked at the pictures from the event and thought, “This looks like Africa. I don’t remember it looking like this when I took the pictures.”

*I hope to have more pics uploaded to Facebook so you can see this wonderful event.