Peanut Butter Boy

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I taught all day at the seminary, five hours on my feet.  It was hot and humid and I was exhausted as I made my way through the muddy street back to the mission compound where we were staying.  I heard the cries of children – “blanc! blanc!” – as tried to push my way through the crowd.

By now I had learned to largely ignore their shouting.  Give one a bit of money, or some food, and soon a riot would break out as children and even parents clamored for a gift.  I felt a bit guilty about that, but what difference could one person make in the face of overwhelming poverty on such a huge scale?

I stepped over the open drainage ditch and turned the final corner that led to the mission.  Forced to wait for the crowd to clear a bit, I paused, and felt someone slip their little hand into mine.  I looked down and saw that it was a young child – a boy.  He looked to be about five or six years old.  His stomach was distended, his hair a kinky orange tint – signs that I had come to recognize as malnutrition.  He looked up at me and said two words: “peanut butter.”

They might have been the only two English words he knew.  And, surrounded as they were by a cacophony of Creole and French, they struck my like a hammer blow.  I knew what he wanted and, as he accompanied me back to the mission, I formulated a plan. 

Arriving at the mission, I asked the gatekeeper to tell him, in Creole, to wait there a moment.  I hurried to the kitchen and found a plastic spoon and a jar of Jif.  Plunging the spoon into the golden butter, I twirled it around several times creating as large a “peanut butter popsicle” as I could.  Holding it in front of me, I made my way back to the gate where the boy waited with hope.

When he saw the peanut butter-lathered spoon his eyes grew wide and he smiled.  He took the spoon and said, “Merci.”  Thank you.  I expected he would shove it in his mouth, but instead he spun around and began running.

Puzzled, I asked the gatekeeper what had happened.  He was obviously hungry, so why didn’t he eat.  The gatekeeper replied simply, “He is taking it home to share with his family.”