Our third day of activities was a visit to the orphanage that takes the kids from the House of Moses, when they are ages 2-6. Anyone that has planned things for a class, knows that "things don't always go as you planned." This day was well planned for, but what followed was a great lesson for us!
We split the children into two groups (lesson number one: kids don't like to be left behind!) with half of them leaving for a craft and story. The other half stayed behind with Cad and I to "sing songs and play games." I had a great list of songs and games to start. I picked up one of the crying boys who started to sing "I am special"- we are talking about a two year old, who sang it about 14 straight times in my arms. I thought, we are off to a great start! Then we realized that even though the "official language of Zambia" is English, the children do not learn that first! They had no idea what we were saying or singing. It was hit or miss, and when we hit, like when I sang Old McDonald and they all chimed in with E-I-E-I-O, we had them all going....the rest of the time, they were ripping up my song sheets, going through my backpack, and just generally doing whatever they pleased....we got through it, but I was sweating.
Time to Switch!
In the meantime, we had the cutest craft going on in the classroom. Linda read the Hungry, Hungry Catepillar, and they each made a caterpillar with googly eyes! Every elementary school teacher knows that googly eyes turn a nice craft into a real winner....what we weren't quite prepared for was the enthusiasm that these kids had for the glue underneath the eyes. The kids came running across the yard and entered our room with their beautiful crafts.... one round of Jesus Loves Me (complete with children responding, "yes he does" after each line) and the kids had licked those eyeballs clean! The loops of construction paper that made up the body of the caterpillar made some great bracelets and there was a pile of eyes out by the big tree!
What these kids really wanted from us was a lap to sit on. We blew bubbles and played catch and just let them go. One of the boys in the group wore my hat the whole day! These kids do not have one thing to call their very own. They share clothes, shoes, caretakers, beds (3 to a bed) and toys. As the children go outside, they grab any old pair of shoes out of a box at the door. Kids are wearing snow boots, crocs, flipflops, you name it! All sizes and shapes - and usually on the wrong feet! No wonder that boy loved wearing my hat all day! They even share the pots!
As a special treat, we were supplying them with a Traditional American Kid lunch, hot dogs (or as close as we could come to hot dogs here) French fries, and Ice cream. Each child was also given a bottle of Fanta! Yup, a bottle of orange soda. Keep in mind that they are all eating outside on a blanket, uneven ground,etc. Many of the kids spilled their soda onto their plates, but they did not seem to mind the extra flavor on their fries! I mentioned before that these children do not eat with utensils......we did give them spoons for the ice cream, but some preferred their hands...needless to say, we were all a bit sticky following that!
We returned to the HOM (exhausted) to make up a plan B, C, and D for the rest of the week!
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