New Shoes

Blue Shoes

How much would you pay for a few pairs of shoes? Say, about four-score pairs that will shod the feet of an entire village of marginalized people? What if you could buy all those shoes for $110? Or, for about the same price as a fancy dinner for two including wine and tip at a toney restaurant downtown, you can give shoes to a small village. Yet for these villagers, shoes were an unaffordable luxury.

Without shoes, one is forbidden by law from attending school or market. So,of course the shoes will protect peoples' feet from sharp sticks and stones, but they will also allow children to attend school, and, they will permit parents to sell their hand made goods in the market.

When we delivered them, we were greeted with singing, bare foot dancing and exultation. Everyone assembled in the village meeting place and the elders determined how the shoes would be distributed. The children and oldest villagers were given theirs first, before the teenage boys swooped in and grabbed the rest.

As we left, we were escorted back up the road by more songs and dance, But this time, almost all the dancers wore blue shoes.