Children's Village Blog
Reminiscing about the Children

An e-mail, originally written to friends and family, by Louise Lamphere Beryl, a volunteer and Director on th Board of Trustees:

Sadly, my time here has quickly come to an end. It was short but oh so sweet. For my final email, here are a few short stories from the past 2 1/2 weeks. It took me about a week to get all 24 kids' names down, but this past week and a half, their true personalities have really come alive, as evident by some of these stories:

This morning the 4 Kindergarteners (Joshua, Vicenti, Boazi, and Josephati, who are about 4 and 5 years old) peered in the window of the Volunteer House while we ate breakfast. When we came out they started a chorus of "My new pants," which was the line that Vicenti (who has a lisp, which makes the line even cuter) kept repeating after he had received a new pair of pants (there's a dance that goes with it). The kids then offered to carry the 4 books about Tanzanian education that I had in my hand, one for each boy. They started following me back to my room and when I looked back, they all had opened the books (some of which were upside down) and started to pretend to read the book out loud in Swahili. They were very serious about it (yet with big smiles on their face) and then they started to pretend to have little discussions about it. They looked like 4 little old men, bobbing their heads as if in a real conversation, and speaking gibberish. It was hysterical.

One day after nap time , I sat outside with Mama Upendo, a Maasai woman and one of our Mamas for Serengeti House, and Grace, who married Peter (our Deputy Director) and is now in charge of book keeping. I was sitting between Mama Upendo and the radio but talking to Grace when all of a sudden her mouth dropped open and we realized that Mama Upendo was talking live on the radio! I could hear her voice to the left and right of me. She had called into a Kimaasai talk show that was discussing the oppression of Maasai women. Mama Upendo made the point that Maasai women need to be educated, because when you educate a woman, you educate a family, but when you educate, a man you only educate an individual. I couldn't believe it! In the US, first of all, you would never get through to a radio station, and second of all, rock on Mama Upendo!

I have been tutoring Jane, a 7yr. old girl in Serengeti house who is in Standard 1. I have been trying to help her learn her letters but she gets frustrated easily and either "shuts down" (she won't respond to anything I say or do) or throws a tantrum throwing the book on the floor and pouting. Recently, though, I introduced her to Connect the Dots with letters and playing Go Fish with letter cards and she loves them! She even begged me to play Go Fish with her over the weekend. Success!

I have really enjoyed tutoring the Standard 2 kids in the morning (Nicola, Ester, India, Marietta, Isaka, and Christina). It has been a bit of a juggling act between all of them but they are all so eager to learn that I just couldn't turn them away. They actually all work fairly well together. I enlisted the help of Jackson, one of the student teachers. He oversees the Math learning, while I help the kids read in English. They have been steadily plowing through the "I can read books", which they love. There's nothing better than helping kids learn to read.

I have been trying to run every day in the afternoon. The ground is much softer than concrete and the landscape is so beautiful and inspiring. The other day, I ran with Catherine and Harry, two other volunteers, up to the new Crater Tented Lodge. The manager was very kind and took us around to see some rooms, but the best part was when the Maasai askaris (watchmen/guards) told us that there were Tembos (Elephants) and pointed over to the next hill (probably about 300 yrds away). There were about 6 of them! When I got back to the Children's Village, the kids were having dinner. I told them about the Tembos and how they were moving in our direction and would probably be here by night fall (of course a possibility but maybe a stretch of the truth). They all went dead silent. One of the kids asked me about what they eat and I said they love to eat children, especially boys, when they are noisy at night. It took a moment before Christina looked at me and said that I better be quiet tonight to because they liked to eat volunteers too.

Last Saturday, we helped the kids decorate "pirate" hats with glitter, stickers, pipe cleaners, etc. While I was setting up, they were very curious and loud, however as soon as I described what we were doing, you could have heard a pin drop while they were worked. They were concentrating so hard. Paulo made his hat into a pirate ship complete with 12 windows and a person waving from each one, which I assumed was for each person in his house. In the afternoon, we were planning to play Capture the Flag, but the kids got into a big soccer game and were happy so we decided to postpone it for another time. Some of the Kiran House kids (the kids that I was with 2 years ago, who still live in the house on the hill with India, but will move down to the Children’s Village in August), came down to play and it was amazing to see how good at soccer they had become, not to mention that they towered over many of the new kids, who were only a few years younger. The Kiran kids have grown like weeds. They also act very maturely. I forget that the kids down here are so small and young sometimes. The Kiran House kids' English has also improved greatly. I also had a conversation with Riziki, who is about 12 now, and she was saying that she and Saidi were #1 students in their class at school, another Kiran kid was #2, and Doctor was #3 (they post the rankings of each kid from Standard 1 to 7 at the school). Case and point I guess about the effectiveness of a good home, food, and extra learning support and supplements at home. Yeah Rift Valley Children's Village!

There are so many more stories that I would love to share but I think this email has become long enough. I had to say goodbye to the kids yesterday and it was rough. But I was buoyed knowing that I'll be back next summer doing some field research for school.

Louise Lamphere Beryl