Fridays at ringroad are a day of rest for the teachers, a day for the students to focus on their clubs and to get out into their “field” to play. I say “field” because it’s really more of a dusty barren patch in front of the school but it works well enough for a good game of football. I help monitor the health and environment club. Yesterday was my first day taking charge of the club without additional supervision. The students had been talking about trees and the important role they play in the environment. A year ago, Dr. Mike Marks’ wife came and planted three trees with the students. For those of you who don’t know, Dr. Mike is a man who I have the deepest respect for. He retired three years ago from his OBGYN practice in the UK and has made it his job to improve healthcare in Africa. He showed me Africa the first time and every trip back I have been lucky enough to have some connection to him. His wife bought three trees, paid the students to plant them, and made them promise to water them and keep them alive. These trees are doing well and a little garden has been planted around them.
So for my first health club project I brought in 5 HUGE avocados. While slicing the avocados and letting the kids have them as a treat, I talked with the class about their health properties, how they grow, and introduced the idea of hands on learning. We began to germinate our own avocado seeds hoping that they will grow and the kids will be able to plant them on campus. They have read about how seeds grow but not a single one of them has ever had an opportunity to do something like this so I plan on continuing the experiments and treats in our club meetings.
The highlight of my Friday though was not my little since experiment. I was moved when asked to go outside and help with the kids first meal. Normally this meal is a small cup of porridge and is typically the first of two meals the kids eat all day. When I got to the kitchen I found Mitch, a man from Atlanta who has moved here for 4 years while his wife works at the CDC. His projects around ringroad include building a chlorinated drinking tank so our kids have safe water at school, fixing anything mechanical so it doesn’t just get tossed away, and filling in any voids on campus. He was buttering the first of twenty loafs of bread. I walked up to his table and grabbed my own loaf and started to generously butter each piece knowing that if I stayed and asked questions it would all make sense.
Mitch explained to me that the students had been asked what they would eat if they could have anything and the response was bread and butter. So, on Fridays he has made a habit out of bringing enough bread and butter for all 400 hundred students. I realized once again how if you slow down and ask the simple questions its fairly easy to make an impact.
I have been feeling somewhat homesick of late but on Friday covered in margarine and breadcrumbs it dawned on me that I’m lucky to have people who are half way around the world that I love, people to go home to, skype with, and to miss. My kids at Ringroad value friendships, as I have written about, and obviously miss their deceased relatives but never talk about it. They are little stoics who at all ages have inherited responsibility for their younger siblings and their own well-being. I am amazed by the generosity I have seen from visitors at ringroad, it doesn’t take much to change the way our kids look at the world. Bread and butter aren’t expensive by American standards and it truly puts a smile on their faces. I have offered to help financially with this project using some of the money I raised before I left. Our goal is to provide bread butter and bananas next week in addition to their porridge.
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