Roses and Nail Polish

This week I visited 2 squatter camps on the outskirts of Bulawayo. Neither more than 15 minutes drive away, yet occupying the bottom rung of the ladder in terms of prosperity. In some respects these places embody the more stereotypical view of poverty-stricken "Africa". Life isn't easy here.

Accompanying a team implementing a cholera programme, I was there purely to reach out to people on the periphery. Not a cholera or healthcare expert, nor involved in the implementation of that or any other programme the NGO runs, I just wanted to spend time with people, especially women. I'd had this idea that I wanted to do people's nails! Something about it, the element of luxury over neccessity, the element of physical contact and the significance of hands and their importance, I had been thinking about. Although I know the value of development programmes, I wanted to demonstrate something beyond practicality, I wanted to communicate something of an extravagant love that values individuals beyond all wildest imagination. A day or two before I returned to Zimbabwe at the start of this year, I had a conversation with my 89 year old grandmother. Somehow we got onto the subject of what matters most in life and I remember she asked what my motivation is for anything. At a fundamental level, what single thing matters most to me? I knew the answer, it's that I want people, whoever they are, to know how precious they are. Of how much value and inherent worth. How loved. That's what it comes down to. I hope I don't sound too much like a Miss World contestent. So, that's how I found myself giving out roses and painting nails today. It was a small gesture to these ladies about their beauty, how it matters and is special. We wanted to do something for peoples dignity. I'd read about a shipment of bright lipstick arriving at a concentration camp in Germany and the dignity it restored in that place and it was really moving as more and more ladies came to have their nails done or said yes when I approached them. I heard later on, that many of the women I met that day are involved in prostitution. We chatted about shades of nail polish, about hands, about anything else too really. In the space of time it took to paint nails I got a chance to interceed and listen to each woman.