The Children Behind the Wall

Coming out and seeing the children behind the wall still bothers me, but it has become a regular part of Jeremy's day. I wish I could see the world through his eyes. He doesn't see any bad anywhere. When we go down to walk Bernice, he immediately goes over to the wall to see if any of the children on the other side are outside. Yesterday, before we took Bernie for a walk, Jeremy pooped. Then, he asked for a lollipop ( I really need to ween him off the lollipops when he poops in the toilet). I was getting one for him and I told him we needed to take Bernie outside ( Happiness was getting a medical exam done). He told me he wanted to bring his lamb stuffed animal because the "other kids" hadn't seen it yet. He was pretty excited to go and show them. Right when we were walking out, he said "let's bring those kids a lollipop like the other kids from the beach." So, I grabbed a Ziploc and put some of our lollipop stash in it ,and we headed outside. Off I went from Jeremy's poop to Bernie's poop. As soon as we got to the basketball court, he ran over to the wall and yelled, "Hey, is anybody there?" Immediately there were a few hands that poked through the wall to say hi. He put his lamb through to the other side and the children looked at it and then I saw another little hand push it back through to Jeremy. The children love to reach out and touch Elizabeth on her arm, and she thinks it is so funny. Jeremy and I handed out lollipops to the children who were there. I really didn't expect them to say anything when we gave the candy to them, but two girls on the other side who i had met before ( Josephine and Precious) looked at me through the wall and said, "Thank you, Madame." I was pleasantly surprised. When I moved here, i was told to be very careful around Nigerians. If you are too generous to them, you will be taken advantage of. I can see how that is true, but I believe you can tell how genuine a person is through his or her eyes. I am sure the look I saw in the girls' eyes was genuine. People are people wherever you go. It was a nice feeling yesterday to share with those children and not feel like I had to put up my own wall.