The Joy of Giving

We have about 20 papaya trees.  Wow!  They produce like rabbits.  When we climb up and harvest them, they fill our kitchen floor stacked up 4 deep.  One thing I have enjoyed doing is teaching the joy of giving.  Many of the people all over the world that have so much money today that they are enjoying the new feeling of helping people.  I love reading about it on twitter and face book.  No one knows that feeling until they truly help someone. It is really an emotion that has been hiding in our "Me" culture.  

That is why I have started showing the very poor people here how to enjoy that emotion.  They too have been denied that feeling because they have not had enough to help others.  When we have a papaya harvest come in, I let my workers take all the papayas and just give them away to the neighbors.  They all ask how much they should pay.  We loved paying the McDonald's bill for the person behind us in the drive through back when we lived in the States.  Acts of Kindness are so contagious. 

Some here already knew about that joy.  All want you to come in their home and offer you food and drink.  Once Charles went to a man's hut way out in the nowhere. The old man served him a very hot coke proudly having had his son run a long way to a duka to buy that hot coke.  This old man was so proud of having Charles in his home that as Charles was leaving, this old mzee  gave Charles his only piece of furniture in his hut.  This gift was a three legged stool.  Charles had to take it.  The Joy of Giving is huge.

As you can see on the faces of our workers and even the children who just cut  up their papayas and ate them right on the bricks they were making. 

I just love what this does.  

What a joy for me.  What a joy for the neighbors.  What a joy for our family that works here.

Karen