Nail Polish

On my last trip I took over to Kenya with my parents I had had my toenails and fingernails painted.  The little kids had thought that this was pretty cool and would constantly touch it.  They were amazed when it wouldn’t rub off on them.  I still remember one afternoon Lydia had come up to me with a huge smile on her face and held out her hand for me to see.  To my surprise she had colored her fingernails purple (the same color of nail polish I had used).  I asked the teacher how she did it and she told me that Lydia said she went and smashed some berries she found in the tree.  I thought this was absolutely adorable!  This time around when I came I made sure that I packed some extra nail polish to paint her nails for real.  I had forgotten about it until the other day she came up to me again with that huge smile on her face and put her foot up on my lap.  Once again she had smashed berries on her little toenails to try to paint them (my toenails have only been painted here so that is probably why she didn’t smash them on her fingers this time).  The next day I then had brought up my real nail polish and was just going to paint Lydia’s toes for her but I figured out real quick that I wouldn’t get away with only painting her toenails.  I would soon be painting everybody’s!  At first Emily and I were only going to paint the girls’ toenails using the purple and pink nail polish I had brought for them but it turns out when we asked the boys if they wanted it done as well they all said yes right away.  Emily and I then spent a good two hours painting 41 little children’s toenails.  Emily had a line going to paint whoever wanted purple with pink sparkles and I had a line going to paint whoever wanted pink with clear sparkles.  The kids were very careful to let them dry before they went off to go and play again.  I could tell that they all really loved it!  While we were painting all of the toenails unfortunately an animal shit on me.  Right away I freaked out and thought that it was a bird but Emily told me to look up and she said it was from the lizard that was on the roof.  So gross!!  Thank goodness Emily came to the rescue and cleaned it off for me.  We also taught the kids to say, “painting our nails” so I got to listen to that for a big chunk of the time.  At the end we took many many pictures of them and it was awesome to see them all so happy that their toenails were now painted like mine.  They really like coming up to me and pointing at my toenails and telling me each of the colors.  I always try to keep my toenails painted colorful for them so that way they will keep on practicing there names of colors.  I also got to paint about ten of the girls's fingernails who just come on the weekend.  It was a lot of fun because they are a bit older then the other children I am used to being with.  I had the boys go off and play there little soccer game while we did it so it was nice to just be able to spend time with the girls.  I was thinking that we might end up painting all of the little children's fingernails once before I leave to just try and use of the nail polish since they loved it so much any ways.  I have a feeling that soon once again I will be covered in nail polish when the task is all complete.  I'm just so happy that I was able to paint Lydia's toenails for real after we showed me how she tried to do it.  She is so adorable!!

Hair braiding ***

Yvonne (everybody over here calls her my African mom) owns here own hair salon.  I have been there a few times now just to go and hang out with her and chat with the different people in the village.  Every time I would go there to visit with her she would always ask me when she could get someone to braid my hair (since that is one of the things she doesn’t know how to do to well).  She had said that she really wants me to look more like an African and she thought this was a good way to start my transformation.  I finally had told her that I would go in on Saturday morning with her and get my hair braided.  Oh my boy I didn’t realize what I was getting myself into.  It was over a totally of 4 and a half hours to complete!  Plus they like to pull it really tightly so my head was in pain every time the lady would start a new braid.  After about an hour the lady who was braiding my hair realized she was going to need some help so she had the other worker put the hair ties in my hair whenever a braid was finished.  That still didn’t seem to be going fast enough so then she had Yvonne step in and help as well.  Yvonne would wait for the braid to be started then she would finish it up and the lady would go on the other side of my head and start the next one.  With three different people working on my hair they would all be tugging it in their direction to try to make it easier to complete their task.  I sure had one hell of a headache very quickly!  Thankfully they did most of it outside so I could at least feel a nice little breeze but it was still pretty hot.  This attracted many people in the village since I was white.  A lot of people came to visit with me but since so many of them didn’t speak English I could only understand that they were talking about me because they constantly kept on saying the word for white person.  Some of the people who came to watch sat there up to three hours!  I couldn’t believe that they weren’t bored out of their mind like I was.  When it was all finally finished I was so relieved!  Yvonne told me that next time they do this to my hair again they are going to add fake hair ass well because my hair is really thin and slippery to them.  I was thinking to myself umm next time? ….are you crazy?!?  We then took a few different pictures which the village people really liked since they are amazed every time I bring out my camera.  I then paid the lady who did my hair which surprisingly only ended up being 5 US dollars.  I knew that if I got this done to my hair on vacation somewhere it would be WAY more then that.  On my way home after I had my hair all braided up everyone was stopping me and telling me now I look smart.  Emily and Wilfred said the same thing to me when they saw me.  I don’t understand why they think I now I become smart because I have braids but oh well haha.  I will probably keep them in for about a week or so but after that I will be ready to have my normal hairstyle back.  I hope to god someone was planning on helping me take these out otherwise it will for sure take the whole day!  The braids were a big hit when the kids at the orphanage saw them though.  It definitely didn't stop them from playing with my hair.  They especially liked that the hair ties were all different colors so we have been going over there colors every time they start pulling on my braids.  For now I guess I will just have to learn how to rock the braids and become an African lady!!