![\"A](\"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/files\/2018\/02\/1-IMG_6336-300x225.jpg\")
<\/p>\n<\/p>\n
Look at this picture.\u00a0 You\u2019ll probably see many things in it and wonder what it\u2019s a picture of.\u00a0 It\u2019s actually a picture of part of the wall on the front of my house, next to my porch.\u00a0 Yes, I do have an outlet on my porch, so that\u2019s what you see.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice the \u2013 and + signs on the outlet, too, since it\u2019s a 12v outlet, and if you put the plug in upside down it would be bad.\u00a0 You\u2019ll also notice that they put in the outlet after they had already cemented the walls, so they had to fix up the cement, which makes it look not quite as nice.\u00a0 And you\u2019ll notice the teal paint splops from when they painted my windows after doing the cementing, too.\u00a0 See?\u00a0 There are lots of things to notice in this picture.<\/p>\n
But when I look at this picture, the thing I notice most is the mark of acceptance.\u00a0 That\u2019s the pink spot you also notice in the picture.<\/p>\n
You see, when I moved into my house, that pink spot wasn\u2019t on my wall.\u00a0 But one day one of my host mom\u2019s daughters came over to use my nail polish. . .<\/p>\n
Yes, here they also have nail polish.\u00a0 But maybe it\u2019s because it\u2019s so dry here most of the year, or maybe it\u2019s because the nail polish sold here is of low quality, but when they open the bottle to polish their nails, they don\u2019t leave the bottle open while they\u2019re polishing, but they put a finger over the top of the bottle to close it so that it won\u2019t dry out while they\u2019re using it.<\/p>\n
So that\u2019s what she did when I let her use my pink nail polish as we sat on my porch.\u00a0 And then, like normal, when she was done polishing her nails, she scooted over to my wall and wiped her finger (that had gotten polish on it from closing the bottle with that finger) on my wall.\u00a0 Hence the pink spot on my wall.<\/p>\n
And that\u2019s why I call it a \u201cmark of acceptance.\u201d\u00a0 It\u2019s easy for people to keep their distance and be on their best behavior around new people, right?\u00a0 (Think of that new family down the street or the new people in church.\u00a0 Or remember when you were the new people and were really<\/em> on your best behavior!)\u00a0 It\u2019s only around people that we feel comfortable with that we do whatever we\u2019d normally do, right?<\/p>\n If that new person is someone of a much higher social class, which is what people here in My Country automatically see any white person as, there is even more\u00a0 the desire to be on your best behavior.\u00a0 So the fact that she didn\u2019t even think twice before smearing her nail polish on my new wall made me feel accepted \u2013 like she wasn\u2019t afraid of me or wanting to impress me, but just making herself at home.<\/p>\n So you see?\u00a0 Even though I now have a bit of pink nail polish on my wall, which I will still be around whenever you come to visit, I wouldn\u2019t change it for a clean wall.\u00a0 It makes me smile when I see it, reminding me that I am getting accepted as a normal part of life, and they\u2019re willing to live their normal life around me.\u00a0 I\u2019m accepted!\u00a0 And that\u2019s writing on the wall that\u2019s worth reading.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Look at this picture.\u00a0 You\u2019ll probably see many things in it and wonder what it\u2019s a picture of.\u00a0 It\u2019s actually a picture of part of the wall on the front of my house, next to my porch.\u00a0 Yes, I do have an outlet on my porch, so that\u2019s what you see.\u00a0 You\u2019ll notice the \u2013 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":945,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[448],"class_list":["post-1239","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-uncategorized","tag-ethnos360","entry"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/945"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1239"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1239\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1239"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1239"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ethnos360.org\/susie-l\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1239"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}