In the past few weeks I have gotten to go out of Daktari on some interesting small trips. One of course was the ChildLine presentation that I wrote about in my last post. Then this previous Friday we went to the town of Polokwane, about a three hour drive away, to attend an Early Childhood Development Awards ceremony presented by the SA government and funded by Absa bank (one of the biggest banks in SA). We have applied for a grant from Absa ourselves, and were invited by the woman who runs their Corporate Social Investment to attend this ceremony to see some of the other work they do and to meet other people working with children in the area. I was allowed to come along mostly because of my connection to ECD, and it was a really interesting ceremony. It was a very glamorous affair with nice tablecloths and a full lunch, etc. What's really weird about things in this country is that punctuality is just not expected. We were, of course, on time around 10am for an event which was supposed to run from 10am to noon. We sat at our table and waited. And waited, and waited, and waited. Eventually, around an hour and a half later, they got started. With no apologies, and not even a reference to how late they were. It is kind of unreal in a cultural awareness type of way. The rest of the ceremony varied between interesting and boring, but what was cool is that it is a ceremony to award the best creches and practitioners in Limpopo, so it was actually oddly related to the work I was doing in Bloem!
Then this morning I got to go into The Oaks village and meet the Chief! Didn't know I would ever be appealing to the chief of an African village, but that's what we did today. Risette and Thabo and I left around 7:15am and drove to the village for an 8am visit with the Chief. We were visiting to ask him if he would support Daktari and especially our Outreach Program. He was an older man, around 70, surrounded by about 10 men and two women who made up his committee. Thabo translated for us into Sepedi as we described what we do here and asked for his support. Ideally we would love if he would attend any ceremonies we do in his village or at the high school, and if he would sign a letter of support that we can add to our letters of support from the municipality in our proposal for sponsors. It was a short meeting (with surprisingly no waiting!) and he agreed to support us, which was great.
Today, while the kids were at Makalali, I got to help feed our two new baby crocodiles. They don't usually eat when it's cold because they're cold-blooded and don't have enough energy to digest when it's cold outside. If they eat when it's cold for too long they can even get sick as the undigested food rots in their stomach. Gross, huh? Anyway we have a volunteer here now who is really good with reptiles, and she helped show us how we can help them eat. We basically rubbed small dead mice all over their faces until they ate. All in a day's work!
I'm looking forward to a big driving trip down to St. Lucia and Durban with one of my fellow volunteers next week, my first real traveling since I've been here! I will take loads of pictures!
I wrote up a little blog about my visit last week to Ramatau school for facebook, so I am going to copy it here then add different photos and maybe a little extra. It's hard to find time to write!
In other news, it has been over 110 degrees for the past three days, with no signs of stopping. It could remain this way until I leave in February. Also did I ever mention that we finished the roof?! My room no longer leaks! It's amazing! Thank you all SO much for helping me raise the money that helped out both me and this amazing organization I work with. On with the post:
A few weeks ago we discovered ChildLine, a non-profit organization that provides a toll-free number that children can call 24 hours a day if they need advice or help about serious issues such as abuse, HIV/AIDS, pregnancy, or depression. We have added their phone number into our curriculum here at Daktari so that all of our children have access to this amazing resource, but we also wanted to see if we could work together with them to do more for the kids.
After getting in touch with ChildLine, we learned that they also do active reaching out to schools around the country. We were in the unique position to be able to facilitate their connection with Ramatau, one of the schools we work with and the home of one of our pilot Eco Clubs. We set up a meeting for yesterday, and headed out to the school to attend! The members of the Eco Club were all there, along with a number of other students from Grades 8-10. We had over sixty children come to the meeting!
Before the meeting the chairperson and vice chairperson spoke to everyone about the Eco Club, and what the club is about. Then there were three speakers from ChildLine, who captivated the children and engaged with them for a few hours. While most of the conversation took place in Sepedi (leaving Risette and I out of the loop) we were able to at least get a sense of most of it. In addition to going over when and why children may need to call the crisis line, the speakers spoke about the definition of abuse, the importance of speaking up for yourself and being assertive, and the importance of not giving into peer pressure. The kids were all very interested and learned a lot, and we think the meeting was a huge success! We hope to set up more meetings at our other schools!
It was so cool to get to hang out at the school and see some of the kids from my first few weeks at Daktari. The kids are so enthusiastic - it's amazing to see what's going on with them after they attend Daktari and they return to their schools. Here are some photos:
Me with some of the members of the eco club:
I was kind of obsessed with the big room where we held our meeting:
Group photo! (Sorry, I'm taking it so I'm not in it):
All weeks at Daktari share a similar rhythm. In theory, each week should look much the same as the one before, since we follow the same schedule and teaching program from Monday to Friday each week. The fact that each week actually tends to look quite different is due to the nature of this project, where at any minute the weather can change, we can get a phone call with a new animal, an animal can get sick or have a baby, or any other of a million crazy things can happen. There are, of course, also planned differences like meetings, visitors, and trips.
We have a saying here, that we probably say at least five times a day, which is "We'll make a plan." This applies to just about anything that could arise, but usually when we are faced with some type of problem that could arise in the future. Examples are, "Where are we going to put two baby crocodiles that we just found out we are receiving in a few hours?" "We'll make a plan." Or, "What will we do with AN ENTIRE TRUCK FULL OF OFFICE FURNITURE?" "We'll make a plan." The ability to "make a plan" is certainly something that I am learning in this job, and I have to say things really do tend to work out. The truck full of donated office furniture was really something. We found out in the morning that it was going to arrive that evening, so we had to clear out our entire workshop to make space where it could be protected from the rain. I took over the morning's lessons with the kids, and the volunteers kicked the workshop's ass. The truck was supposed to arrive around 8pm from Johannesburg, but of course with the thunderstorms and our bush-roads, it didn't make it until about ten. We decided to unload the next morning, and then found out that the truck couldn't make it all the way into camp because of the roads, and had to park about half a mile down the road. So? We made a plan. We drove the bakkie (pick-up trick) back and forth about twenty times, full of loads of desks, filing cabinets, computers, chairs, huge whiteboards, etc. The kids unloaded in the workshop, a team worked at the back of the truck, and I worked with a few volunteers to do all of our "regular" chores for the morning, making sure all the animal cages were clean and the animals were fed. Afterwards we joined the lifting crew; the whole project began around 7am and finished around 12:30pm.
Anyway, I'm just trying to illustrate here the flexibility in our program. A few things also came up this week. One of our meerkats, Tiki, had been acting strange for a few days, not wanting to come out of his bed and being lethargic. At first we thought it might be because we had a few chilly days and the meerkats don't like the cold, but when he didn't show interest in mealworms on Tuesday afternoon we knew something was definitely wrong. Michele, Risette and I put on thick gloves and picked him up, suspecting (correctly) that he had "worms." The worms in question are actually the larvae of the Putzi fly (wikipedia link) which burrow into the bloodstream of mammals (yes, including humans) and grow and grow until they form tumors and need to be popped out. I couldn't make this up if I tried. Poor Tiki had about eight huge worms living in him, and we worked together to hold him still, pop the worms out, and disinfect the gaping holes they left behind. After a shot of antibiotics he was done for the day. It was really sweet the way our other two meerkats snuggled and protected him after the whole ordeal, and even though none of us could really look at our dinner after that it was totally worth it because Tiki is now back to his old self. We did a thorough cleaning of the meerkat camp and are hoping that we don't see too many more worms this season. The flies are attracted to anything that becomes wet and then dry again, which of course happens very frequently in the rainy season. This is the reason that all of our clothes, including underwear, are ironed after they are dried in the sun, because otherwise WE might get these worms, and that's the scariest thought ever.
I had a lot of other things I wanted to write about, but this is getting too long so I will update more this weekend. I'll leave you with a few photos of our meerkats (post de-worming) so you can understand how cute they are.
Here is Gasper snuggling Tiki who rolled into a little ball to rest after the trauma:
I'm back at Daktari after another intense time in the Mangaung township outside of Bloemfontein. I was there from Saturday to Saturday, and while I did not necessarily "rest," it was good to use my brain in a different way.
I helped lead and facilitate a five-day training with two amazing Bank Street professors as well as a public health student at Columbia named Shannon. The four of us were a little family for our week in Mangaung, cooking our meals and planning together, as well as sharing a variety of crazy Africa stories. It was an honor to be a part of this team- and to participate in this amazing training.
The training focuses on three "lenses" - the first is HIV/AIDS, especially the stigma surrounding HIV+ people in South Africa. The second is "child development" and the third is "relationships." We had about fifty women (and one man!) attending, who were parents, teachers, and matrons in the creches. Many were the same people I had visited in July and August, so it was good to know exactly where they were coming from and what they could learn. Normally these three groups of people do not interact at all, so that was another main point of our training, to emphasize how important it is for the kids that we all are on a team for them, together.
The training involved a lot of activities that can be seen as "metaphors," as well as a lot of intense discussions and some more direct "instruction" type teaching. All of the videos and pictures that we used were taken in Africa, and we were able to add a lot of the photos and videos I had taken, so that they could see that we are speaking about what is realistic and applicable for their community, not what we have in America. Most women seemed eager to learn, had tons of questions and anecdotes, and were really thankful for the training they were provided. We had a few who seemed more skeptical, especially around the importance of interaction and stimulation for children under three. We also came into a lot of cultural disagreements regarding the use of physical punishment for children, the role of attachment, and other really deep-seated issues. In this way it was incredibly emotionally draining, trying to remain professional and objective in the face of a lot of people who have very different ideas than you, especially when we are talking about the care of babies, which I obviously feel passionately about.
I was also the photographer/videographer for the training, so of course I have a lot of material to choose from. I tried to pick a few things that would show a bit of each part of the training - but mostly I have photos of the activities we did that were used as metaphors - these just happen to be the most visually interesting things we did. Probably my favorite parts of the training, however, were the songs and blessings we did to begin every part of the training. I took about twenty videos, but here's one where Faith (the other professor) began her favorite song:
This is a picture of the "chair exercise" I'm sure many of you have done in work trainings and such. I don't know if you've ever done it with fifty African women of varying size and shape though - I do recommend it. We used this as a metaphor for the three types of women there (parents, teachers, matrons) working together and supporting each other.
This is a photo of an exercise we did entitled "Life Load." For this exercise we used potatoes and plastic bags to symbolize the burdens we all have to carry around with us. We gave categories (i.e. family, self, finances, legal, health, etc.) and encouraged everyone to pick up potatoes for their burdens, and then to put potatoes back for their blessings/supports, until they're left with a symbolical "life load." We had a few brave women share their load with us, and it was incredibly emotional. This woman, who was one of the most enthusiastic and wonderful participants of our training, shared that her "old age" was beginning to affect her, she did not make enough money as a matron in the creche to pay herself a salary, and her fifteen year-old granddaughter was pregnant. As she spoke, women around the room nodded and made sounds to say, "me too." The main reason we do this exercise is to show the different types of women that they all go through similar tough times in life, and the way we draw upon our support systems, and the way they can support each other. It was really moving.
Here is a picture of me leading a meditation of sorts. We call it the "Love Memory" exercise, and it serves as an example of the kind of loving feelings and sense memories that adults can call to mind using only their brain. Babies, as you may know, can experience sensory feelings that lead into these love memories, but can only gradually begin to call up an image in their brain when they are not experiencing it as they move through toddlerhood. We use this example throughout the week when we talk about attachment, and how important it is to help babies develop a positive love memory of their parents and caregivers from the moment they are born.
Here we all went outside with towels and blankets to talk about motor development. We all went through the stages that babies go through as they are learning to walk, trying to pick ourselves up without using our stomach muscles and go from lying on our backs to standing. The woman in the middle is Virginia Casper, who was my thesis adviser at Bank Street and helped to develop the tool I used in July as well as this training. We do this exercise because early childhood teachers hear a lot about "milestones" - especially when it comes to motor development. What they don't know is all the individual components that make up a milestone like walking. Therefore when a child is "late" reaching a milestone, they have no idea how to help him or her. So we went through all the different components of a milestone and some of the ways you can help them.
On Thursday I lead an activity we created for the first time for this training, called "What Can You Do With What You Have." I used pictures and videos I had taken in the summer, and made two activities. The first was around what you can do as a teacher when you notice that a baby or toddler is interested in something in the environment, or begins a dramatic play scheme. As a teacher, it was really fun for me to talk with this group of women about fun ways they can follow a child's lead and insert themselves into the play or activity in a way that extends the child's learning.
For example, in this photo (projected behind me) a ten month old discovered that her hand was creating a shadow on the floor. We talked about what this discovery meant for her, and the ways a teacher could extend this activity to further her learning.
The second part of this conversation was about innovative use of everyday materials, where I showed slides of really interesting and inventive things I saw in my visits, and then we all shared ideas with each other from our own classrooms.
The last thing I will share with you is an activity called "The Neuron Dance." In this exercise each person acts as a neuron, with their hands being the axons and their elbows being the dendrite. In this way we create a brain. When we begin to sing, our neurons fire to each other, and new connections are formed in the brain. The brain development portion of this training is SO important because most of the time babies are left to just sit all the time, which of course does nothing for their brain. Over and over we remind them that 0-6 are the most important years for brain development, and the neuron dance illustrates for them how important it is that children are not just waiting (when they do nothing, their neurons do nothing.) Anyway, here is the wonderful neuron dance:
Sorry this is so long, it was a really action packed week. I'm glad to be home, and now looking forward to another trip in about a month, where I'm going to drive down the coast!
