Snapshots: Tissues

For my next series of blog posts I will be posting "snapshots" of Africa. This is a debriefing technique that we used while in country and I enjoyed it so I figured I would give you all a few snapshots :).

           While in Africa we were sent to various townships to have spiritual conversations with people. The girls went to the same township every time but the guys went to different ones. The first time I stepped foot in this township I was struck by the fact that it seemed as if I had flown to a country other than the one I was in. It was a bit intimidating initially, but this is what we were here for so I pushed away my fears and kept going. There were 7 of us girls walking down this crowded street together trying not to give eye contact to the guys shouting at us in another language, men singing to us, applauding us and trying to sell us things. To say we felt uncomfortable would be an understatement. We passed by men sitting outside their stores on chairs talking to friends, women cleaning shoes at their shoe buffing business, homeless men digging through the plethora of trashcans, men from Asian countries selling bootleg DVDs of movies still in theaters, men and women in their religious garb, and random patrons wandering the streets. I did a lot of prayer walking around the specific area we went to, and noticed a lot of intriguing things. There were charities that helped the sick and needy representing specific religions, women's dress stores, restaurants, coffee shops, and one day we even saw a man wearing a gun the size of his body walking down the street! One thing that immediately broke my heart was a street vendor who came to sell us his wares. He came up to us with a six pack of travel tissues in his hand. He was trying to sell us just one individual pack of tissues. He said "would you please help me support my family and buy some tissues." It just broke my heart. I mean, they sell those exact same tissue packs at target for around $1.50 and he was trying to support his family on that? It just broke my heart. I saw him every day we were there trying to sell those tissues. I think this man gave me some perspective. Chad and I are not the richest people in the world and struggle to pay our monthly bills (seriously). Yet this man was living on a much smaller income than me and was still alive. I have nothing to complain about.

The street where the man tried to sell us tissues

Other side of the street (usually full of vendors)

A huge mall we patronized in the town, it contained a religious building and various religious calls could be heard