Week Three

Photo: Mekelle Rules!

What a breakthrough week for the children. Every day our posse of bodyguards walk us home and practice their English, and every day I can see them grow in capability and confidence. I decided to introduce them to poetry. I wrote ‘Our Deepest Fear’ by Marianne Williamson, on the blackboard, they, feverishly copying it down, while I explained what it meant. Having taught them to use the dictionary last week, one of the students, Geree, spontaneously ran to get the dictionary to look up the words they were not sure of.

Something ignited in the classroom that day. There is a severe lack of story or fiction books here. Everything is matter of fact and there is no room, no time, for fantasy or independent thought. Today was different. After the children had voraciously dissected the poem, I asked them to write an essay on whatever they wanted. One of the boys, Daniel, an extremely bright sixteen year old, wrote a story and what a tale. It wasn’t the content of the story that moved me to tears, it was the fact that he had these ideas locked into his brain without an outlet. All of the children have now got the idea of imagination and how to use it, how fabulous it is to see. Their stories were bright, funny, articulate, tragic, but they were theirs. I wrote some key words on the board a couple of days later and told the children to make sentences out of them. Our bright spark Daniel, having considered his options for a while, brought me his work. He had written a poem.

As these children are the most tenacious followers of soccer it has been my experience to witness, I decided to introduce them to the rugby ball. I painstakingly went through the rules of tip rugby with them. They all nodded in understanding and agreement, until they got the ball that is! It was the most fiercely fought and contentious game I have ever witnessed. Not even the mighty men of Munster could have held this tide back. Tip rugby it certainly was not. The girls proving to be as tough as the boys, one of them holding the ball so tightly no one could get it off of her. A new game was born that day: Mekele Rules.