One Day Without Shoes
Watch: One Day Without Shoes VIDEO
I'm a little slow writing this post, but even if you can't participate in this year's "One Day Without Shoes" event, you can join in the effort to make sure no one in the world goes without shoes. It's a cause near and dear to my heart, because little T had no shoes until we bought him a pair in Addis Ababa, after figuring out what his shoe size was. When he lived at home, he was barefoot. When he lived in the orphanage, he wore communal crocs, ususally on the wrong feet.
He's a long way from that now, so sometimes it's easy to forget. But we just got photos of his family, and there stands his oldest brother, in bare feet. My son's brother has no shoes, and there's nothing we can do about it ourselves; we can send nothing of value to his family in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety in the adoption process.
Can your child attend school without shoes? Neither can children in Ethiopia. So a family who can't afford to buy shoes can't send their children to school. In the US, a social services agency would step in with aid or donations. Sometimes even the schools step in; my stepdaughter attends an inner city K-8 school that regularly sends out requests for shoes and sneakers. But when you live in one of the poorest countries on earth, far from the nearest road down a dirt path not accessible by a vehicle bigger than a motorcycle, where are you going to get a pair of shoes, short of a miracle?
Not only are children barred from the opportunity to attend school to better their lives, people without shoes are subject to dangerous and disfiguring diseases from parasites that enter the body through the feet, not to mention the constant threat of infection from cuts and sores in the skin from stepping on foreign objects. Tetanus remains a serious threat in Ethiopia, where few are vaccinated against anything. Podoconiosis affects over one million people in Ethiopia alone. It is 100 percent preventable by wearing shoes.
I remember so clearly waiting for our birth family meeting; standing outside the hut of the kebele -- sort of the town hall, surrounded by a hundred or more Ethiopians gawking at the ferengi -- foreigners -- who'd shown up in their midst. I was downhill from most of them, so when I gazed out at the crowd, I saw a lot of feet. Feet in old shoes; feet in ill-fitting shoes; feet in shoes missing the toe box -- I presume the shoes weren't big enough so the toe box was cut off to make room for the toes; feet in muddy shoes; but most glaringly: feet in no shoes. And I was wracked with guilt, "These people need so much, and the best I can do is take away one of their kids?" I thought. The image of that crowd of feet stays with me.
So, today, I am not wearing shoes. It is snowing here. I am legally required to wear shoes to drive and enter stores. But I sit here in my basement office with a thin rug between me and the cold concrete floor, contemplating my good fortune to own shoes, and thinking of what I can do to get shoes onto the feet of the people of Ethiopia. Will you join me? Will you help make a miracle happen?
I'm a little slow writing this post, but even if you can't participate in this year's "One Day Without Shoes" event, you can join in the effort to make sure no one in the world goes without shoes. It's a cause near and dear to my heart, because little T had no shoes until we bought him a pair in Addis Ababa, after figuring out what his shoe size was. When he lived at home, he was barefoot. When he lived in the orphanage, he wore communal crocs, ususally on the wrong feet.
He's a long way from that now, so sometimes it's easy to forget. But we just got photos of his family, and there stands his oldest brother, in bare feet. My son's brother has no shoes, and there's nothing we can do about it ourselves; we can send nothing of value to his family in order to avoid any appearance of impropriety in the adoption process.
Can your child attend school without shoes? Neither can children in Ethiopia. So a family who can't afford to buy shoes can't send their children to school. In the US, a social services agency would step in with aid or donations. Sometimes even the schools step in; my stepdaughter attends an inner city K-8 school that regularly sends out requests for shoes and sneakers. But when you live in one of the poorest countries on earth, far from the nearest road down a dirt path not accessible by a vehicle bigger than a motorcycle, where are you going to get a pair of shoes, short of a miracle?
Not only are children barred from the opportunity to attend school to better their lives, people without shoes are subject to dangerous and disfiguring diseases from parasites that enter the body through the feet, not to mention the constant threat of infection from cuts and sores in the skin from stepping on foreign objects. Tetanus remains a serious threat in Ethiopia, where few are vaccinated against anything. Podoconiosis affects over one million people in Ethiopia alone. It is 100 percent preventable by wearing shoes.
I remember so clearly waiting for our birth family meeting; standing outside the hut of the kebele -- sort of the town hall, surrounded by a hundred or more Ethiopians gawking at the ferengi -- foreigners -- who'd shown up in their midst. I was downhill from most of them, so when I gazed out at the crowd, I saw a lot of feet. Feet in old shoes; feet in ill-fitting shoes; feet in shoes missing the toe box -- I presume the shoes weren't big enough so the toe box was cut off to make room for the toes; feet in muddy shoes; but most glaringly: feet in no shoes. And I was wracked with guilt, "These people need so much, and the best I can do is take away one of their kids?" I thought. The image of that crowd of feet stays with me.
So, today, I am not wearing shoes. It is snowing here. I am legally required to wear shoes to drive and enter stores. But I sit here in my basement office with a thin rug between me and the cold concrete floor, contemplating my good fortune to own shoes, and thinking of what I can do to get shoes onto the feet of the people of Ethiopia. Will you join me? Will you help make a miracle happen?
We purchased Toms for several family members last year! Love the cause.
ReplyDeleteYou're not required to wear shoes to drive ....
ReplyDeleteIn New York, we are required to wear shoes (or sandals, flip flops, boots, etc. just not barefoot) for driving. Apparently we do not have enough beaches.
ReplyDeleteI stand corrected, having done some research online, I find that it is NOT illegal in NY to drive barefoot. Mom and Dad were wrong. Dang. I could have been driving barefoot for the past -- well -- several decades.
ReplyDelete