It's Africa Calling, Act 8 Paints and Smells … Helping Africa Move Forward

Africa Act 8 Paints and Smells … Helping Africa Move Forward

October 17th, 2007

Dear Friends and Family, its Africa calling…

It is time. It is time to help Africa move forward.

Paints and Smells

I found this story in my archives – writers never throw anything away. It was taken from a lecture I gave in 1995. I call the story, “Paints and Smells” – it is the story of a young girl asking Swami Rama about the proper method of performing charitable services; I was in attendance at this lecture at the Himalayan Institute of Glenview, Illinois.

Once there was a fifteen year old girl who went to hear Swami Rama lecture. At the end, he asked for questions and she raised her hand, “Sir, can you teach me how to do charity? I would like to know how to do it.” The instructor was pleasantly surprised and pleased with her question. He asked, “this is very good, what would you like to do?”
She said, next year, I want to give fifteen dollars a month to charity. He said this is very good, what is your problem? She said, I'm afraid I won't do it right. How do you do charity right? After looking at her for a long time, he asked, “how much do you spend on paints and smells?”
At first the question was puzzling, then her mother gave her a hint – paints and smells probably means ‘perfume and cosmetics.’ She got the hint. “I spend about twenty-five or thirty dollars a month.”
He said, “okay, here's what you do. When you go back home, you only spend ten or fifteen dollars on paints and smells, and the other money you give to charities, but no one must know that you are giving any money to charity. When your friends come to you and say, how come you're not wearing all the paint. You must say something else, like, I just forgot. You don't say, well I'm giving money to charity because I'm great. You tell them something else so that the giving is secret. Maybe you then can't go bowling as much or can't eat as much pizza because you give to charity, you don't say why, you must keep it to yourself. It's nobody's business. That's how to give to charity.”

I sit here in Kumbo. I am surrounded by folks who have dedicated their life to charitable service. Their greatest accomplishments remain hidden. They have no interest in name, fame or fortune. Their sole interest is helping this culture re-emerge and re-engage with the modern world. It is time.

It is time to help Africa move forward. Invisible forces of nature have brought you and I together. We have silently been charged with helping those who at this time cannot help themselves. To the highest possible level of help, we must help them now. It is time.

Thanks for your help.

from Kumbo,

Blair