Sunday, 4 March 2012

The Kids are too cute!

Visit to the local creche 




Its our last proper days work at Thanda as we leave on Sunday and Saturday is a day off. Tom, Maren and I decide to spend some time with the community project and visit the local creche, Mama Grace. We head off at 8am (what a lie in!) driving through the bush for 45 mins to get there. The school is just one small room with a tin roof and no toilet or running water. Well, there is a toilet, but it was just a tin shack in the garden that hadn't been positioned properly over the hole, and so the kids just used the patch of grass outside the classroom instead!
When one of the community volunteers first arrived and asked why they didn't have a proper toilet at the school, she was told that the kids don't have one at home, so why would they have one at school? which makes sense, even if it is hard to comprehend!


The Mama Grace creche


The kids started the day learning the alphabet, with Clara, one of the volunteers leading the way. This involved lots of shouts of 'A is for apple' and pretending to chomp an apple to make it clear what an apple was! The kids range from 2-6 years and were all Zulu kids who don't speak English. The vols rely on the community liaison man, Sibu, who is from the local community and works at Thanda as a go-between, translating for the kids and the vols. 
After alphabet it was time for a snack. Most of the kids turn up for school with no food as their parents don't have any to give them, so Thanda have managed to arrange for some basic meals to be provided. The government should be doing that anyway, but TIA as we say - This Is Africa. You soon learn that very few things actually happen the way they are supposed to and there is usually a huge amount of red tape to get through too.


So we fed the kids some kind of weird porridgey/maizey kind of meal, doling out the little coloured plastic bowls to them. Some kids took it hungrily, some were more interested in pulling off their shoes or smacking the kid next to them, so the food didn't always go where it was supposed to!


It was then toilet and hand-washing time! So the kids all have to form a line, one for girls and one for boys, though that didn't always go to plan either, and then they were led outside to take care of business. There were a few kids straggling at the back of the class so I went over to collect them and get them to go outside and as I bent down to try and communicate to them what they needed to do, they all just grinned at me and flung themselves at me for a hug! Well, that was the first time I nearly cried, and not to be the last! They were just so damn cute!!


After 'business' was taken care of they all lined up again to wash their hands in one big bucket of soapy water that they all share. I had the job of handing out old bits of towel for them to dry their hands on, but again, this was a bit lost on them as some just stared at me, a few got the idea and dried their hands until I had to take the towels away, and a few just chewed on them! 


Lining up for handwashing
Handwashing

Tom in charge of hand drying while US Sarah looks on




The kids went back inside for more lessons and Tom, Maren & I had a tour of the facilities. They have a chicken project onsite so that they can sell the eggs to raise money, rather than just breeding the chickens and selling them for meat as they were before, as they had to wait for the chickens to reach a certain size before they could sell them, whereas there will be a constant supply of eggs so that they can keep making money. We had a look at the patch of grass that the community vols had been digging up to turn into a veggie plot, they had already done half the area and there was already some corn and cabbages planted. 


Some local goats

The school 'toilet'

The bit of land being cultivated


We then went back to the classroom where the kids were learning the months of the year. This was one of the things we had wanted to see as US Sarah who had been on the community project for a month, often regaled us with stories of how whenever they were teaching months of the year, for some reason the kids could only recite them while swinging one arm wildly in the air! And if they didn't, the kids just looked at them blankly. So we were looking forward to seeing Sarah standing in front singing 'January, February etc' while swinging her arms about like a mad woman!



Doing the months of the year. As you can see, not everyone was paying attention!
We then moved on to face painting, which was great fun. The kids are so polite and quiet and serious looking, they all formed little lines in front of each of us, watching intently to see what we were doing to the kid in front. Since we didn't have any mirrors, we took photos of the kids to show them what they looked like. You will see that the kids never smile in a posed photo, no idea why, they are normally smiley kids but put a camera in front of them and the smile goes away, until they see their photo that is!


2 of my attempts

My favourite kid

Colouring-in session

Tom doing some face painting
This little girl made me nearly cry for the 2nd time. She was fascinated by the camera and the pictures of her, and at one point pointed to the picture of her and then at her chest and said something to me in Zulu. Sibu was there and told me that she said that the picture would live in her heart forever! 


Sarah has to be painted too

Sarah, Sibu and the kids




After face painting it was time for some conservation work on the veggie plot. We turned the soil in the other half of the field, ready for planting to begin. We only worked for about 30 mins but it was nearing midday and very hot and dusty so we were soon all filthy.Nothing new there then.


It was then time to leave and all the kids were leaving too. Even though they are so young, they all walk themselves to school, and it won't just be from 5 mins around the corner! As they saw us all getting back into the vehicle, they all shouted 'byeeee' and waved madly, which made us all want to cry again!
Just too damn cute!!

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