Vigilante Acts of Kindness: Ivan's Paintings

"Alicia, will you buy one of my paintings?" Ivan chuckles. He laughs like the cartoon character Goofy and I giggle each time I hear his laugh. "I need to earn some money to buy school supplies and some more art supplies."

I love this kid for wanting to earn money instead of asking for a handout.

Ivan is one of my favorite kids from this year. A few years ago Ivan and his younger sister were taken in by an American couple. Ivan didn't have a father in his life and after a tragic accident his mother was left mentally disabled and unable to care for her children. She now lives in a care facility in another part of Uganda. Ivan calls the American couple his parents. When his parents had to return to the U.S., they left Ivan and his sister with a house to live in. His parents send money for the house, for bills, for food and for schooling. Ivan keeps a detailed account of the expenses and he reports it back to his parents every month. Any extra things Ivan needs, he pays for himself by selling paintings out of the art studio at his house. When Ivan and his sister finish school here, they will join their parents in the U.S., where Ivan hopes to attend a university and major in art.

"I'd love to buy a painting, Ivan. Do you have them here?" It matters little to me if his paintings are any good.

"No, but I'll get them from town and show them to you. I've got four finished paintings, but I want to give one to the Vice President of our school when he visits."

He brings the paintings to school and we go behind one of the classrooms where he lays them out on the ground. They're good.  I immediately know exactly which one I'm going to buy for myself. It's a small painting of the word LOVE with Africa in place of the O.

Love

What Ivan doesn't know is that I'm using Vigilante money to buy the other two remaining paintings.

I pick up the LOVE painting and the two other paintings. "I'll buy these three, Ivan."

"Three? Really?" His Goofy chuckle rolls up from his belly.

"Yes, three. How much do I pay?"

"Anything is fine."

"Ivan, I want to support the work you're doing as an artist. So think of a price that's fair for both of us and that's what I'll pay."

Ivan takes a few minutes to think. "Is 200,000 shillings okay?" I do some quick converting in my head. He's asking for roughly eighty American dollars. I pull shillings out of my wallet for the smaller painting and use Vigilante shillings for the other two paintings. We shake hands and both of us leave feeling like we got the better deal.

In even more exciting news, after seeing my LOVE painting another friend in Africa is commissioning Ivan to paint a similar one for her. My sister is also going to help Ivan make and sell prints of his paintings. Again, one small act of Vigilante Kindness snowballed into something even greater.

When I bought Ivan's other two paintings I honestly didn't know what I was going to do with them. I just knew that I wanted to support Ivan and his budding art career. Later in my hotel room as I spread the paintings out on my bed, an idea came to me: I'd give them away to my fellow Vigilantes of Kindness. The only problem-and it's an incredibly good problem-is that I only have two paintings and I've got way more than two Vigilante donors.

Ivan's impromptu gallery

The two paintings up for grabs are the two closest to the love painting. One is a vertical tree painting. The other is a landscape with elephants in the foreground. I'll take better photos when I get home.

So here's how it's going to work, for every dollar you donated, you'll get a ticket in the drawing. So if you donated $20, you'll have 20 tickets in the drawing. If you donated $200, then your name will be on 200 tickets and so forth. I'll do the drawing on September 30th. That will give me time to take photos for making prints.

This is also good news for those of you who wanted to be Vigilantes of Kindness, but weren't able to because you offered to donate when I was already making my way back home. You can make a donation and be entered in the drawing as well. (Message me for details on how to donate.) Any new donations will go toward my return trip next year and the Vigilante Acts of Kindness that are yet to come.

I'm absolutely giddy at the mere thought of returning to the land I love and exacting more kindness for the sake of being kind. I look at Ivan's LOVE painting and wonder just what's going to happen next in my love story-our love story-for Uganda.