Shoe Shine Boys

We ran into Leo again this morning, our little 8-year-old buddy from the soccer team. By 8:30am, he had walked about two miles from his house in the Villa Duarte area to our neighborhood to try to drum up some business in shoe shining. He daily walks the city streets with a little wooden box and a rag to try to make a few pesos.

Mark asked him where his friend Frandis was this morning. We had seen them walking together throughout the summer with their shoe shining kits, and were curious why Leo was all by himself today. Because Frandis has school in the morning and Leo has school in the afternoon, they have to do the shoe shining alone during the school year. They both go to school for only three hours a day, which leaves them with a lot of "down time" and can make a little money when they're not in school.

It's interesting. There are shoe shine boys on practically every other corner here in the downtown area of Santo Domingo. At the beginning of our time here, we would get frustrated when they would come up to us and practically beg for us to get our shoes shined. It was annoying back then... we would be eating at an outdoor cafe or something, and a dirty little boy would come up with big eyes and ask us to help him out. I used to have a hard time looking them in the eye and Mark would handle it by telling them a couple of times in Spanish that he "wasn't interested" or "didn't need to have his shoes shined" or something.

Now, when we see a little shoe shine boy walking in our direction from afar, we squint to see if we know him. If it is one that we know, we can't help but smile, give them a high five, and ask them how they're doing and how business is coming along today. And if it isn't a boy from our soccer team, they still get a big smile.

You know, the truth is that once you hear a little bit of someone's story and spend some time together... people don't seem just like "little annoying shoe shine boys" anymore. They have distinct names and faces, which God knows and loves. It's really a cool thing.