Schule

For our community service we had to come up with an activity to do with the kids at the primary school. The requirements were that it had to be educational somehow and wildlife related. After much discussion, we decided to describe animals to the kids and then have them guess what they are. Danson, one of the Kenyan students, and Gasper, one of the Tanzanian students, helped me translate the descriptions into swahili. That was a very interesting process because Gasper put so much thought into it. Before he translated everything he discussed the english sentence with me to make sure he understood the meaning and then he would talk to Danson and determine the best translation. He also kept wanting me to change the order in which the statements were made. I'm not really sure what his thought process was but I just put everything in the order he wanted. It took at least an hour for us to come up with five animal descriptions with translations that everyone was happy with. Haha.

When we presented our game to the group the kids really liked it. They caught on quickly and started hopping in their seats and waving their hands in the air as we described the animals. One kid who looked to be about half of the age of the others would figure out all of the animals after our first or second sentence and then proceed to wiggle around until we finished and either called on her or someone else. Another kid guessed totally random and wrong animals every time. It was really cute.

After we were done with our game we asked the kids if they wanted to teach us anything. They said a song and then sang four or five songs for us. Most of them were songs in english that were similar to those that I sang as a kid (if you're happy and you know it and one like the wheels on the bus except they sang about getting ready in the morning). After the songs they formed a circle and sang and danced. Then we split off into smaller groups and played duck duck goose. It ended up being a mixture of duck duck goose and tembo tembo simba (the version we'd taught them last time). After a little while that died off and we played land rover (red rover). I felt bad because the little kids were getting beat up when we played. One kid got knocked flat on her face and started sobbing. I brushed her off as best I could but she didn't seem comforted so I just let her get over it. After a little while she was laughing at the rest of us so I guess she was okay. I also played the hokey pokey so that the younger kids could participate. They thought that was great; especially when I stuck my butt in :D After the hokey pokey we played hand games. Someone taught the kids hand clapping games and they had to remind me how to play; I haven't played since I was about their age.


When our time was up the kids walked us back to camp. They shook our hands, gave us high fives, took pictures with us and said goodbye about a million times. One kid came up to me and grabbed my hand like we were having a thumb war but just pressed against my hand as hard as she could. I pushed back and made faces and noises like I was pushing as hard as I could. She thought that was hilarious and kept saying "tena! tena!" (again! again!). Then she said "tosha" (enough), walked away, and then turned around and came back again a couple of minutes later to do it again. Finally I said "tosha tosha" and escaped back into camp.