Kids having fun with stickers.
Lately I’ve been going through my house and cleaning it out. My service here in Togo ends in October so I have two years of accumulated stuff I need to get rid of and sort out. This means I’ve been tossing a lot of crap. What do I do with my trash? Well there isn’t any trash collection in my village so I pay my host brother to take care of it. I place my garbage in a plastic bag and then leave it on my porch and he goes though it and looks for items that may be of use and then burns the rest. I don’t know how many times over the last two years I’ve left my house and seen a child playing with something I threw away. That empty can of spices? Well now it is transformed into a child’s toy car.
About a week ago, I was leaving my house to walk to the center of the village to buy tomato paste and phone credit when I see a strange site over by my host family’s house. There are about six half naked children covered head to foot in stickers. I laugh and walk over to where my host mom is watching the kids apply the small multi-colored smiley faces. Apparently somewhere in my garbage were some sheets of stickers I inadvertantly tossed.
I explain to my host mom that what the kids were wearing are called stickers. She asked what they were for, and the only response I could think of was that they are for the amusement of children. I couldn’t pass up the chance to take a few photos of this moment as all the kids looked pretty adorable and quite amused.
