It’s Thursday! And we all know what that means….JABEZ!
The only people on the shuttle into the township today were
Jabez volunteers. It was very hot, dusty
ride up to the centre (hotter than usual, I mean. It was in the 70’s today,
which means it was approx.. 5,960 degrees on the bus).
When we arrived, 16 kids were already standing at the gate,
waiting for the padlock to be opened. We all funneled inside where the chairs
were already set up in a circle. The volunteers went straight to work dishing
out rice and stew onto plastic plates. Before we even had 5 plates assembled,
half a dozen kids wandered in. It was going to be a very busy day. We didn’t
have enough plates to serve everyone at once. As soon as one child was done
with his or her meal, we washed the dishes, and put it through the food
assembly line again.
Once nearly everyone had eaten, I left the kitchen and
squeezed into the loud crowded main room. The kids were so hyper today and so
eager to play with us (normally they kind of sit for a bit and stare at us like
“Why are you here…”) I played hand games with a bunch of little girls who were
sitting near the door. A beautiful little girl with light eyes, whom I’d never
seen before, kept asking me questions I didn’t understand then laughing at me.
Katie and I let them play with (rip out) our hair for a bit, before trying to
organize the chaos a bit. We tried to get them into teams like we usually do,
but today they all kind of just moved their chairs to the center of the room
and became a large wailing mass. A perfect environment for absolutely nothing.
I came up with a spelling game that everyone could play at
once. One letter at a time, I spelled the name of an animal, and to guess the
answer they had to act like that animal. They were so cute! One kid would
scream out the answer “LION!” or “ELEPHANT!” and then everyone else would
answer too as if they had known all along. There were a couple really sharp
kids in that group. With some prompting (and foolish acting on my part) I got
them to roar and trumpet and ribbit and bark like the animals I was spelling. I
asked some of them to spell something we could act out. Then I started with the
imitations first. I would bark like a dog or scratch my head like a monkey and
they had to spell what I was. It went so well!
When they were bored of that we did some math problems, but
honestly, all they do for that is shout out random numbers, except for a few of
the really bright ones. At some point we kind of lost the attention of our
massive hyper group. I ended up in the corner with about 5 really eager kids
who wanted to keep playing something.
After a few failed attempts at teaching times tables (one of them knew all the
answers, and the others were just not getting it) I taught them to count to 5
in French. They were so cute!!! The youngest in the little group caught on
really quickly.
Next thing I knew, everyone was running outside. We don’t normally
play out in the yard on Thursdays, but it was so nice out and the kids were so rambunctious
it seemed the only thing to do. They played a lot of clapping and singing games
in a circle.
From my Applied Theatre class I actually knew one of the
songs (we’d learned it as a warm-up). It felt so good to be able to sing along.
Then they played another one I sort of knew that was kind of like a
concentration game. One kid looks to the kid next to him the circle and says:
“Go buy ‘oomoo’”
“What?”
“Oomoo” *I
don’t know what “oomoo” is and I don’t think I’m spelling it right.
The second person says to the third person: “Go buy oomoo”
and it starts again.
This exchange continues around the circle, but it always
comes back to the original person. So you ask back down the line “What?” “What?”
“What?”….”Oomoo” “Oomoo” etc.. It’s kind of like a game that I know called “This
is a Duck”
“This is a Duck”
“A what?”
“A Duck”
“Does it quack?”
“Of course it quacks, it’s a Duck”
“Thank you I’ll take it. This is a
Duck”
Gosh I loved it! Suddenly, we were all asked to come back
inside. The older boys were going to put on a show for us! It was such a great
surprise. (If the shuttle home had been on time we would have missed it all
together). They did two skits (entirely in Xhosa so I had no idea what was
happening) and I smiled like a proud dorky mother throughout. Next, 4 girls did
some singing and dancing.
Sadly the bus arrived to take us home and we had to miss the
rest of the show, but it was such a special treat to experience that part of
their culture and to see the joy with which some of them performed.
I always come home from Jabez feeling fulfilled and
exhausted. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Definitely taking my camera next
week. ;)
