For those of you who have no idea what “gum boots” are, I’m here to explain! Gum boots are basically rubber boots worn during the rainy season. Here, when the cotton soil gets rain it becomes thick, sticky and slippery. Walking in that with school shoes is not advisable so the kids needed gum boots.
Now, when my kids (back in the States) needed shoes it was an easy task of jumping in the car, heading to the store, trying on several styles and purchasing the shoes. Here is a completely different situation. First 20 of the 29 kids needed gum boots. You can’t just take 20 kids to the store….because it took a week or so to even find out if gum boots were available in our area. Once we found out they were, it was another few days of negotiating (not only prices but if the shopkeeper would come to C4KK with the boots).
We settled on prices and a time for the boots to be brought….that day came and went with no shopkeeper showing up! Instead of us pursuing the boot guy, we let it go and waited for him to contact us. Which he did a couple days later.
The boots were brought, kids were fitted and everyone received gum boots!
