Their eyes

I found this essay Ashlynn had to write and I wanted to share again the impact Africa had on our girls in their own words.

Ashlynn Patrizi
April 16. 2008
Mrs. Lauer

Their Eyes

Their piercing, cold, sad eyes stared right back into mine; they had nothing else in them except my reflection. These eyes hadn’t seen much past these school grounds, the only thing they had seen was disease, pain, and hurt families. As I was giving each kid a scoop of rice, I noticed that this was the greatest day of their lives. As each kid would go by and get their rice they straight away would run and hide and sit there and eat their rice happily. This is what my eyes saw in Tanzania, Spring break 2008.

We got there in the morning, around 7 o’ clock. It was a gloomy day, but the children were singing their hearts out for us. In Swahili they sang songs of happiness and joy that we were there. It made me feel like I was giving so much to them but I really was only giving a little of my time. Amazing how little you can give but how happy you can make someone.

It was then lunch time, the sun started to part through the clouds and put a little sun on the kid’s faces. Each child was holding a black bag, we all didn’t know what it was until the headmaster came up to us and said, “Its their treasure”. We didn’t understand at first but then we realized it was a plate. Food is life; people will do anything for their lives these kids were out of control when we started to serve the food. I felt like I was dishing food out for starving wild animals. They shoved and pushed and screamed at each other and punched and kicked. The little ones really couldn’t defend themselves so the teachers pulled the young ones out and they got their own bowl. It was a fight for life, but then we actually started to dish out the food.

The sun now was fully out of the clouds and beating down on the kid’s navy blue torn up sweaters. I took a break from serving and just sat back and watched these poor kids digging into these bowls like monsters, I wouldn’t blame them though. It really made me realize, I had to take a step back and look at my life and see that I am very lucky.

Young ones crying, older ones stealing each others food, others that were fed were celebrating by water fights and laughing and dancing. We eventually got to play the ultimate game of Duck, Duck, Goose.

Looking back and remembering those eyes will haunt me forever.

I know that this experience has changed my life and I would love to go back to that sunny day, with the happiest kids that have so little.