Teen Celebration and Shoes!

After the selfies and the building, we went home to officially meet the kids who had been in school during the earlier ceremonies. It started with a performance by the teenagers. They danced to several songs for us.

After the dance, they lined up in the same manner that the adults had earlier and we distributed shoes and socks to many of the kids. The reason the shoes were so special is because they wear sandals and thin leather shoes year round. They live in the frigid cold Andes Mountains!! These shoes were actually rejected by an American orphanage as not good enough. They were plain black or white sneakers with some accent colors, but because they were not a fancy brand, the orphanage said the kids wouldn't wear them. In America, all the kids want to do is fit in.

Here is the problem with these shoes: They were sample shoes, models no longer being made. Most samples are made to a size 7. Remember how I said we are generally taller than them? Well, we also have bigger feet. I would say the 7s worked for probably 60% of the kids. And,  we had some in smaller sizes, but probably 20% of the kids either didn't get shoes or got shoes that didn't fit well. I asked one mom if she could take a bigger pair to grow into and she said no. But with the language barrier, I don't know how much we understood from each other. We shared broken Spanish and tried our best to explain. Ella es muy pequeña! No mas! and Zappos es muy grande! Some were very disappointed. Most were content with a pair of medios (socks.) But, ouch! It hurt my heart to not have shoes for every child. There was one child in particular for me. My Little Big Shoes. (Remember my ornament?) He sat quietly, patiently, waiting for his turn to be fitted. He had a ball cap on. This was the only ball cap I had seen on the village people. Something about the way he was sitting, so stoic, just absolutely stole my heart. He was probably about 3 years old. I knew we wouldn't have shoes his size. I brought him some socks and let him pick if he wanted blanco or negro, (white or black.) I thought he was happy with that. He gave me a big smile and tucked the socks in between his legs. By that time, many were figuring out that the sizes were too big. And unlike the men of the village, once the kids got their shoes, they ran off to play. But LBS stayed put, even after he had his socks. Waiting patiently for his shoes.

       Little Big Shoes 💙

Meanwhile, Abbi was working with a pair of sisters. The older one was an easy size 7 and had many options to choose from. However, she wouldn't take any shoes until her little sister got some. Abbi explained that we didn't have any for her sister, so she wouldn't take hers.

One of the other challenges Abbi and Mackenzie both saw was they don't know how to tie their laces! Mack and Ab tied endless shoe laces!

As the kids finished getting shoes, they headed to the upper level to play games, do crafts and get their hair and nails done. Little Big Shoes stay put until almost the very end. I didn't see the interaction go down, but someone worked it out for him! I would've packed this sweet one as a carry-on if I could. He completely stole my heart.