We went straight from the airport to our Hostel at Kuta Beach in Lombok.
It is a beautiful place and just on the other side of the road is a white, sandy beach with crystal clear water.
At the beach is a local place where you can get fresh fruit juices and have a seat in the shadow.
Once in a while a child came passing by offering us beautiful bracelets. I felt like buying one to make the children happy, but my friend sitting opposite of me, said: ''Don't buy, don't buy, don't support this'' , when I was reaching for my wallet.
We started talking with one of the kids. She was a 13 years old Indonesian girl. Like all other kids her selling point was, that she made those bracelets herself and she want to buy some school books from the money she is making.
I asked her whether she knows Jakarta (it's the capital of Indonesia). She replied: ,,No, what is it?'' I taught her a little bit about the Geography of Indonesia. She was actually a really smart girl. But she probably didn't go to school much in her life, plus the bracelets from all kids looked the same, which made it clear they where not self-made.
What happens next is something truly amazing!
The kids liked that we were paying so much attention to them and one of them climbed on the side of my chair. I pretended that the chair now is falling and I fall together with the chair. All kids started laughing and me too. Because it was so funny all kids liked to do it over and over again and didn't stop laughing. We ended up jumping and running and playing around with those kids at the beach. After a while I went back to our place to have a sip from my juice and rest for a minute...
What I saw then was that all those bracelets from all kids, that were fixed to small wooden boards, where lying around all mixed up and on top of each other, on my chair.
I looked back to the beach and saw all those kids laughing and playing at the beach, not caring at all about their bracelets.
We might didn't give the kids money on that day, but we gave them something much more valuable. We gave them a piece of their childhood back, by just letting them be kids. They did this afternoon what all kids in the world should do and that is playing around and laughing.
By the time we said good-bye to them I knew all their names expect from the youngest boy. Their names where strangely all American or European names. So I asked him: ''What is your name actually?'' The 13 years old girl then loudly replied for the young boy... His name is Patrick now...
The young boy had a huge smile on his face and said: ''Yes, my name is Patrick now'' and my heart just melted...
The girlfriend from my friend took many pictures that day, from me playing with the kids, but later in the travel, we had an argument and out of anger she deleted them all. So I have only this one picture, which I made with my phone that day...
