Reading just for fun?

The after-school program at Tembisa Baptist Church doesn’t have the sponsors that Arebaokeng has. They aren’t even sponsored by the church, which charges rent for the use of their old building and office space in a converted house on the property. But they run a crèche and feed a hundred children a day.

Friends from Grace Baptist Church, Kempton Park, continue to visit one morning a week to sing and play games with the little ones. I don’t think anyone has been reading with the school-aged children since I left.

When I returned last week, I brought my computer so the kids could see a slideshow of the pictures we took before I left in July 2008. I say “we” because they went off with my camera and took better candids than I would ever have gotten! Now they crowded around the computer and squealed with delight at the faces of themselves and their friends, some of whom you can see in the slideshow at the top of the left column.

I read The Christmas Story since tinsel and garlands of evergreen already decorate the shops here. We also read Lulama’s Long Way Home and laughed at the little girl’s clever ways of getting away from the dangerous animals she meets as she tries to find her way home.

“What was the point of that story you read?” one of the caregivers asked when the children were settled with books from the bin I left in 2008.

“It’s just for fun,” I explained. She looked disappointed. “But reading aloud in English helps them to learn the language, and on this page we practiced counting with the silly baboons.”

She nodded.

I continued. “I want them to think of books as fun. The more they read, the better they will do in school.”

A light passed over her face as though reading without a learning agenda was a new and pleasant idea to her.

It was mass chaos as the children read, exchanged books to read some more, or crowded around me to share their reading skills or just to touch my hair. “See how much they enjoy it,” I said. “Why don’t you pull the book bin out every week?”

Just maybe it will happen.

***Please note*** I will be discontinuing this blog after this trip to South Africa. You can continue reading about My Not-so-ordinary World at http://leannehardy.net/blog.htm where I am already posting.  I hope to hear from you there!

St. Francis Nursery School

This week I returned to St. Francis Nursery School in Boksburg.  I used to read there regularly back in 2006 and 2007.  I turned the project over to a colleague when I went to the States for a few months.  That colleague has now returned to U.K. so I thought I would stop by to see if anyone would like a story or two. 

The children were in the yard when I arrived.  As I approached through the garden Teacher Ruthie burst from the door, squealing like a three-year-old and running to greet me.

Unlike the community programs where I usually read, St. Francis is an institution—a home for abandoned babies and children rescued from emergency situations.  Most of the children are HIV positive, more than one discarded on a garbage heap by a parent too sick to take care of them.  A few are fostered, but keeping the children in an institution is a way of being sure they get the medications they need.

All these children are new since I was last here.  The ones I read to have “graduated” to Epworth, a home for school age children about forty-five minutes away.  Ruthie and her former colleague Louise go twice a year to visit “their” children, taking presents and spending time, trying to provide some continuity of relationships in the lives of the children.

Ruthie and I sat on the bench in front of the school.  “That one was found locked in a shack without food.” She pointed out a little boy about four.  “The neighbors called the police to break down the door when they heard him crying for days.  No one knows who his parents are or even his real name.”  When he first arrived, she told me, he would crawl into the suspended barrel on the playground and not come out.  Now he plays with the other children.

She pointed to a little girl, older than the others.  “She has a little brother.  We are looking for someplace where they can stay together.  Both parents have died.  The relatives rejected them because of their status.”  She means their HIV status, still a cause of fear and stigma here.

Ruthie is one year away from finishing a BA in early childhood education.  She wants to be a government inspector to monitor pre-schools and nursery care.  I just hope that doesn’t take her away from direct contact with the children.  She has such a big heart.



***Please note*** I will be discontinuing this blog after this trip to South Africa. You can continue reading about My Not-so-ordinary World at http://leannehardy.net/blog.htm where I am already posting.  I hope to hear from you there!

Back at Arebaokeng

The Arebaokeng community project has a crèche (daycare / pre-school) and an after-school program for children who have lost parents to HIV/AIDS.  When I lived in South Africa, the children were cared for in an old house.  The dining room/classroom was a garage.  On cold days the little ones crowded into a tiny bedroom with no furniture.  When it rained, the center had to close because the roof leaked so badly there were puddles all over the floor.

Arebaokeng has the sponsorship of Spar, a prominent South African supermarket chain.  They have just moved into a new facility with three classrooms, dining hall, kitchen, office space, a wide veranda and playground equipment.  There is even a promise of computers to come.  And best of all—the roof doesn’t leak!

It was a delight to return and greet old friends.  I read Jane and Chris Kurtz’s Water Hole Waiting to the little ones.  They loved identifying the different animals, and Mama Monkey’s repeated, “Wait!” 

With the older ones I read The King’s Fountain by Lloyd Alexander.  It is the story of a poor man concerned that the king is planning to build a fountain that will divert water from the city so the people and animals will be thirsty.  He asks the scholar to go and explain to the king the damage that will be done, but the scholar is so caught up in his lofty ideas that he can’t get involved with the practical.  The poor man goes to the merchants who know how to speak cleverly, but they are too afraid of the king.  He goes to the strong man, but the strong man is all action without thinking through the consequences.  At last his little daughter convinces the poor man to go himself.  In the end his simple honesty convinces the king not to build the fountain.

Some of Alexander’s language is a little hard for these township children whose English is anything but fluent despite their schooling in English.  They weren’t sure what a fountain was.  There was no picture in the book since the fountain was never built.  Their teacher Liza and I had to come up with a place in the city where there was one they had seen. The lesson I wanted them to get was that even an ordinary person like them can make a difference if he has the courage to speak up and tell the truth. 

“Perhaps someone will say to you, ‘Those people are from Mozambique or from Zimbabwe,’” I explained.  “’Let’s go and hurt them.  They aren’t like us.’”  (Unfortunately the xenophobia that erupted last year is at the point of exploding again due to the pressures of unemployment.) I continued, “If you are like the poor man in the story, you will speak the truth. ‘They are like us inside.  It isn’t right to hurt them.’  Even though you aren’t big and important, you can make a difference.”

The children wanted to know where I have been for so long.  They have no concept of how far America is.  “I’ll be back next week,” I said. Liza suggested that they write letters for me to take to America.  I told them to include a return address if they would like an answer.  Contact me if you would like to respond to one of these eager children.

***Please note*** I will be discontinuing this blog after this trip to South Africa. You can continue reading about My Not-so-ordinary World at http://leannehardy.net/blog.htm where I am already posting. I hope to hear from you there!

Guest blogger: Kay Strom

Today is my birthday.  I am reminded by our guest blogger to fall on my knees once again and thank God for the precious family he gave me.  I hope you will join the Salvation Army in their

4th Annual International Weekend of

Prayer and Fasting

for Victims of Sexual Trafficking and Modern Day Slavery

Stolen Identity by Kay Marshall Strom Enormous eyes in a bony-thin face, and a baggy green dress that dragged the ground.  Because of all the cast-off children at the village school in India, the raggedy girl stood closest to our translator, he gently asked her, "What is your name?" The girl stared.  "Your name.  What is it?" the translator asked again. The girl whispered her answer:  "I have no name." A child with no name.  A little girl abandoned so young she could not even remember what her parents had called her.  She grew up begging at the train platform, snatching up the scraps harried passengers dropped, watching other children picked off by traffickers.  Now that she was seven or eight--perhaps even a scrawny nine--the traffickers had come for her.  But the girl screamed and kicked and clawed so ferociously that someone called the police.  Someone with clout, evidently, because the police came and pulled her away from the traffickers. Somebody in the crowd suggested that instead of putting the child in jail, the police might take her to the village school, which they did. They dropped her at the door and left. Human trafficking, especially sex trafficking, is rampant around the world.  We think of it as an eastern European problem, or Indian or Nepalese or Thai.  It is.  But it's also a Western problem. The U.S. State Department estimates between 14,500 and 17,500 people are trafficked into the Untied States each year, but concede that the real number is far higher. According to the U.S. Justice Department's head of the new human trafficking unit, there is now at least one case of trafficking in every state. The little girl with no name was fortunate that someone responded to her screaming pleas.  What would you do if you heard a child shriek for help?  Of course, if she were a trafficking victim in this country, she wouldn't likely scream or kick.  She would probably shrink away in terror, or act submissively.  You might see wounds--cuts, bruises, burns.  Perhaps what would catch your attention would be the constant work: babysitting, cooking, washing dishes, scrubbing floors--never just being a child.  Or maybe you couldn't say exactly what was wrong--only that something about the child's situation made you profoundly uneasy. Please, please, if you suspect a person is being trafficked, call 911 and report it.  Yes, it is okay.  Yes, even it you are mistaken.  In fact, eighteen states require citizens to report possible child abuse or neglect of any kind. In the 1700s, Quakers led the fight against the African slave trade.  In 1885, the Salvation Army took up the abolition banner, and since then it has led the fight against a different kind of slavery. More and more, 21st century abolitionists are followers of Christ determined to see slavery of all kinds ended in our day. Oh yes...  Before I left the school in India, I asked if we might give the little girl a name.  She is now Grace. About the Author: Author Kay Marshall Strom has two great loves: writing and helping others achieve their own writing potential. Kay has written thirty-six published books including Daughters of Hope: Stories of Witness and Courage in the Face of Persecution and In the Presence of the Poor. She's also authored numerous magazine articles, and two screenplays. While mostly a nonfiction writer, the first book of her historical novel trilogyGrace in Africa has met with acclaim. Kay speaks at seminars, retreats, writers' conferences, and special events throughout the country and around the world. She is in wide demand as an instructor and keynote speaker at major writing conferences. She also enjoys speaking aboard cruise ships in exchange for exotic cruise destinations.