I’d like to tell you a story about a 8 year old girl named Tatika. When I first met Tatika, she was dressed in her red checkered school uniform, about 3 1/2 feet tall, shaved head, and a very, very grim look on her face. This beautiful girl would not crack a smile. While all the other kids were climbing all over us, she looked on from a distance, keeping to herself and not seeming to want any attention. I thought, like most of the kids, she’d warm up to the white foreigners and make her way over to say hi, but during the whole day, she just sat by herself, stone cold straight faced. While she jumped rope, straight faced. While she played hand games, straight faced. Why wouldn’t this girl smile?
Then came my mission: get this kid to smile. If you know me at all, you know I love to laugh, I love to smile, and I love kids. This should be an easy task, right? Wrong. I approached Tatika and she looked at me very suspiciously, and motioned if I could sit down. She just stared, so I took the lack of negative response as a positive thing and took a seat. I reached out my hand for a high five, and got rejected. Ouch. That’s embarrassing. I don’t think there’s a more serious rejection in the mind of a 8 year old than a rejected high five…
I sat there all day with her and never got a smile. She didn’t hold my hand, and she didn’t climb on my lap. We just sat there side by side in silence until she went home. The next day when I came back, I put my game face on as soon as I saw the school kids coming up the hill; I was going to get this girl to smile. She came through the gate and I went straight to her, and said, “hey there, beautiful!” and she gave me a “whatchu talkin ‘bout Willis?” face. That struck a cord with me. “God, does she not believe she’s beautiful?” I thought. She seemed to warm up a little because as we were standing there watching the kids play jump rope, she grabbed my hand. “Yesss”, I thought, victory number one. A little while later, she said “entate” which means “pick me up”. Little by little she was warming up, but I still couldn’t get a smile. So, I decided to cheat a little bit.
Tickle fight! I started tickling her as she was in my arms, and she was biting her lips so hard as to not smile that I thought she was gonna bite right through them. What was up with the not smiling?! I put her down and decided to pull out some camp counselor moves: dance time. I started twirling her and then did a little boogy move, which got all the other kids around me to start laughing at my ridiculousness…but still no smile. But we just kept dancing until eventually, I got the most beautiful smile I’d seen in all of Africa. A rotten teeth grin.
Tatika’s top front teeth were all rotten and had fallen out, which is why she refused to smile, and which is why she gave me a strange look when I called her beautiful. At 8 years old, she didn’t think she was beautiful. What a cruel lie she was told so very young. I got to spend the next few weeks dancing with Tatika, and there was never any more struggle to get her to smile. As soon as she came to the care point from school, she’d run right up to me and we’d start dancing. It was beautiful, just like she is.
There’s no big revelation to go along with this story, Tatika just made a really big impact on my heart, and I’m going to miss her a lot. She taught me how lies can penetrate so deeply, so young, and how a little attention and love can combat that. I think she also taught me a lot about God’s pursuance of us, that no matter how many times we don’t want to give Him a high five or hold His hand, that He’s still sitting there nonetheless until we want to. She also taught me how kind words can make all the difference in any relationship. I love how God uses children to teach us, and I love that He gave me the opportunity to meet little Tatika.
God bless,
Jenna
