Bananas and puzzles

So we've been back in the swing of things here in Thailand, except for the massive earthquake we had and the military coupe, everything is somewhat back to normal. Our girls are back from their villages and with them came a new little one. She is four and about the cutest thing you've ever seen. Her name is little "Bee" and boy I'll tell ya she's a stinger.

The first night of having this new little one, we noticed that she had this awful rash and open sores over a lot of her body. She wouldn't go to sleep, because she was itchy. Now I don't know about you but this is probably the worse thing ever.....when you've got a rash, it's 102 degrees outside, you have no air condition, and youre trying to sleep. Not a good combination, and to top it off she's surrounded with all these people she doesn't know and in a place she's unfamiliar with. Naturally my instinct is to help, I mean this poor baby girl is miserable. So I go get some itchy benydryll spray to maybe help her stop itching so she can go to sleep. Well I bring her over to me with everyone watching trying to figure out what to do, and I start spraying the rash. She jumps up, and starts screaming holding the area I had just sprayed. I was flabbergasted. I don't remember itchy spray ever stinging that badly. I mean she keeps crying. She's wailing. She is over in the corner not coming out because the foreigner sprayed her with something that felt like fire on her skin. Needless to say after that moment I was like the plague to her. Anytime she would see me, she would run in the other direction. She was so scared of me, because I was the bad lady.

I felt awful, all I wanted to do was help, but she didn't understand that, she just knew I had caused her pain. So about a day ago, I was determined to win back her trust and hopefully her love. I mean she's so cute, it's awful being hated by someone so cute. So I went and got a puzzle and opened up my door to my room. I sat on the floor and started eating a banana I had brought up to snack on. And before I knew it she was walking by my room. At first she just walked by very quickly. Then I couldn't believe she walked by again, but a little slower and saw the banana I was eating. But kept walking. The next time she stopped right at my door, and I decided to go out on a limb. I held out the banana and said in thai, " aow mai?" Which in thai means, you want some? And she just looked at me and sat down right at the edge of my room, right in the doorway. Still afraid she reached for the banana and started chomping away. So I decided to start playing with the puzzle by myself. She just watched me trying to figure me out. When I looked at her and asked her if she wanted to play with the puzzle. She just starred then scooted closer and closer. Before I knew it, we were talking, putting the puzzle together, and laughing. After that we were like best fiends, holding hands and all.

In writing all this I learned a simple lesson through precious Bee. That people are normally won by the most mundane things. For Bee it was a banana and a puzzle. But in saying that people are also not won by the simplest things. Me spraying that on little Bee summed up her opinion of me. I was bad. But giving her a banana and playing a little puzzle game showed her I wasn't. We need to always be careful on how we treat others, good intentions or not. Doing small things for people will always pay out. So today do the small things, do them with love, because the small things win hearts.