Tuesday, September 30, 2008

Seize the Day.

Muli shani ('greetings' in Bemba),

The summer vibe is alive and well in Zambia. It is extremely hot. I frequently consider emptying our fridge and climbing in. If anyone would like to send water guns, water balloons, or a sprinkler, the kids and I would be very, very thankful. We have a pool in the back of our house but it will never be filled, my parents say. I am very bitter about this.

Due to the heat, I make the kids drink lots of water. So much that they have changed the way they say the English word. They used to pronounce the ‘t’ very particularly, ‘watt-teh’. Now they say ‘wah-dah,’ which I can only think is some hybrid of our two accents.

In the past week or so, we have been discussing their rights as human beings and children. First, I let them teach me. They told me their rights included, “education, love, and play time.” They were very happy to learn that they were not far off the mark.

The first right we talked about was ‘freedom of expression.’ They listed ‘coloring, singing, and praying’ under this heading. They are very intelligent children. I then traced each of their hands onto construction paper and let them color the page. On the back of each piece of original artwork, they delegated words for me to write down. This was their idea. They all mostly wrote the same thing which sounded like: “Dear Children, You are my lovely family and I love you very much.” We even made a page for Marcos which read: “Dear Children, Thank you for all the nshima, I love you very much.”

I am hoping to paste their individual pictures on each page, bind them together, make copies and give them each their own booklet.

We next talked about the right to education. Mostly they taught me this one, listing all the great reasons to go to school which they love to do. This day, we read out of Stephen’s school books, I read a sentence and they repeat it. They love doing this.

Our talks of freedom also included one day discussing HIV/AIDS. I am happy to report that they are well versed and serious about protecting themselves. They quizzed me, I just barely passed.
Today we talked about what it means to have dignity and learned ‘Seize the Day’ from the Newsies. (‘Nothing can break us; no one can make us give our rights away. Arise and seize the day!’) I desperately wish I had the actually movie to show them, I know they would love it. We are laying out plans to make our own music video to this song. I think in the coming days we will talk about why it’s important to know their rights and what happens when human rights are not recognized; then respect and discrimination.

While I am teaching them about rights, they try to teach me Bemba words. I am extremely slow but the kids assure me that I am doing well. Today I learned ‘musungu’ which means ‘white person.’ It occurs to me that I have heard this word many, many times while walking down Nile Avenue in blissful ignorance.

Until next time, peace.

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