When we were at the Acholi quarters
yesterday, as well as being taught bead-making by the ladies, we also spent
some time playing games with the children. Some of the time it was big group
stuff, and then gradually it split down into smaller groups as individual team
members, or pairs, played quieter games or sat and chatted with the children.
It was during this time that one of our
team members had the following exchange:
Acholi child: ‘you are very beautiful’
Team member: ‘oh thank you, so are you’
Acholi child puts her hand against the team
members hand, and strokes the white skin, and then says ‘you are beautiful, you
have white skin and you are beautiful’.
She then looks at her own very dark skin
and says ‘ I am black, black is ugly and bad, white is beautiful and good’.
Wow – how do you start to unpick that? A
history of white domination and colonialisation, plus access to advertising and
TV programmes from the West, plus a perception that white people are all rich
and living the ideal life, all mixed together and muddled along the way, and
then contrasted to their life of poverty and lacking of access to basic human
rights – you can see how it has happened. Even the picture Bibles that they see
will be donated from the West and have Jesus as a white person and clothed in
white.
Thankfully our team member did the right
instant response – she gave the child a big smile, looked her in the eyes, and
said ‘no, you are very beautiful as well, your heart is beautiful and its not
what colour our skin is that matters’.
May this week help to instill that even
more in the little girl, and all others thinking the same, as we work and play together
– its not the skin colour that makes a person beautiful, but who they are on
the inside, and how they show that through what they say and do. May we be seen
as loving servants of these beautiful people, and not rich, uncaring white
people.
BTW, for the team views on the trip, and
some photos go to www.credfoundation.blogspot.co.uk.
No comments:
Post a Comment