memory books - the class

4/24/07 -- mid afternoon

When we returned after lunch, we had a few minutes to prepare and then the 25 kids descended on our room. My other Pathway girls had helped to clean up the room and the desks were arranged in a circle. This school is normally used by high school boys (it is a boarding school) and we were amazed to see electromagnetic theory and formulas written on the chalkboard. Physics! Many of the children have said to me that their science classes are their favorites.

We passed out the books and the kids (all Form 1, approximately the same as 9th grade) looked at them curiously. I started to explain what the idea of the books was -- we felt that each of them was "fearfully and wonderfully made" (one of the Bible verses of the week) and that they were special and unique in God's eyes. The book was for them to record their own thoughts, dreams and wishes and tell special things about themselves, as a memory book to pass along to their own children to tell them how they thought at this age. There were places for pictures, we had many many pens and markers of different colors and stickers which we passed out. I got a lot of blank looks. Ellen told me that 9th graders are just beginning to be taught in English (they can already read and write it) but that they were having trouble understanding my accent! So she explained again in Kikomba -- I started to see heads nodding, and the kids got busy. Some of them were a little afraid to start -- they were not sure what they were supposed to answer. I told them, with Ellen's help, that there was no particular right answer, just what was true and right for each of them.

The hour and a half allotted for the project this day flew by and many of the kids were enthralled drawing detailed pictures and didn't get very far with the written part. We decided to have the kids skip the picture drawing for now (tomorrow's group) and have both groups return Thursday afternoon to finish. We all assisted the kids in understanding the questions, but I found that as soon as they understood, the light would come on and they would immediately have an answer. We took pictures of the kids (see above for a few) and since we had decided not to print them here due to voltage issues, will print them and mail them back to Ellen for the August VBS. She will make sure that each child receives his or her own picture for their book.

Later, it occurred to me that it was possible that these children were never asked these questions and something that we often take for granted may have been an entirely new experience. Some of the kids really enjoyed using the colors -- Michael (see above) decorated his book so beautifully it was a work of art! Many of the kids had incredibly thoughtful responses. Here are some of their responses to some "complete the sentence" questions:

I wonder... why God loves me so much.

I wonder... why my father died.

I wonder... how Americans can love Africans like I so different.

I worry about... my mother and father who loved me much and left me but I am not alone.

I am ...a very funny and storytelling boy!

I am ... active and I love everybody, even my enemies.

One of my big regrets of this trip is that I didn't have time or the resources to make some copies of the books. They were wonderful.

The next afternoon 4/25/07, we repeated the activity with 25 Form 2 kids. They understood me much better and really had a good time with the activity -- they understood immediately what it was about and really got into it. Both groups will return Thursday to work on them some more and the finished books will be handed out Friday morning.