Today was a great day. Rachel and I spent the day with the children at K2, a preschool for orphaned children. We ate some pape (boiled corn meal) with a soup like dip for it. The children were beautiful. It was hard to imagine none of them had parents. I sat in class with Cindi and got number of hours with her and her kids (4th picture). I got to hear her story along with some of the kid’s stories. Cindi is my age, 23, and has been teaching in the school for the last 4 years. She has a boy who is 3 years old and her mother passed away five years ago. It was really great being able to watch her with the children.
You also begin to see the potential in children after seeing these kids, all 1-5 years old and mature as anything. They listen when told what to do. The play when told to play. They be quiet when told to listen. They are all independent beyond anything also. They clean their plates, wash their hands, go to the washroom always by themselves. It was amazing watching barely two year olds moving their own chairs around and preparing their own places to eat.
The afternoon was spent on the same base when all the high school students came into get extra help on their homework. This program is called Forward education and it is where they are preparing a few of the students who show good leadership skills for possibly going to college. Hands at Work spends a lot of time and energy into a small number of students hoping that they will rise up and start pouring back into the Masoyi community. They are doing a great job with it.
One of the boys that I worked with in the morning and his younger sister (first two pictures) have to walk 5 km by themselves every morning to come to the school. They had social workers going to their aunt’s house to talk to her about moving closer so that the kids didn’t have to walk so far. I gave Martin my camera for an hour or so and taught him how to use it. He loved it. The forth picture is his. It fascinates me that these children have no parents, have to walk 5km to school, and yet still find joy in the same things that we do, being with people and being loved and accepted.
I finally got to upload some pictures, I’ll repost them at full sizes all together when I get back, I can’t upload large files from here.
wow, nice shots… what kind of camera are you using?