Our garden is at the top of our list of things to do. Below is the plan that we have come up with about how the garden will grow and look on the property, overall. :)
Above is the map of the property.
This is the farm portion. If flipped clockwise, this is what we're filling into the bright green area on the map.
The garden is the first task we're really trying to tackle based on the time-sensitivity of the Spring season. We’re trying to capitalize on the warm weather that we get here year-round. Hopefully we can have 4-seasons of crop production. We should have at least three rounds of good vegetables produced.
Our second most important task is our upcoming holiday programs. There is currently no real coordinator of the children’s programs, (even though there are 300+ children who attend every Sunday for songs, a story and biscuits). Project Rx gets to be inventive about all of the wonderful things we can do for the holidays.
I have since been in charge of Holiday festivities, which I don’t mind one bit. I’ve arranged a game of “Feliz Natal Bingo” for over 500 kids, some great holiday print outs for them to color. More importantly, we can give kids at home kits for their ailments, such rehydration mixes for common diarrhea, band-aids for cuts, and soap for everyday washing. Though these may seem very small, most children do not come into contact with any of these items regularly.
Each of the items will be paired visual aides and a small lesson on how to use each item. One thing that has become very clear, is that the level in which we have to describe most things has to boil down, often to nothing more than a picture or a short statement. Anything more than that and we may run into situations of illiteracy, the difficulty of understanding complex language, or confusion about what the main purpose of the item is. The level in which we have to speak to the community speaks to our capacity to be able to reach people at all levels.
This brings me to my third task at hand, which is designing the health curriculum for children ages 3-7. I have been designing a health curriculum to allow teachers to simply aide young children how to live healthier lives, tailored to the community’s environment, resources and lifestyle.
I am clearly no expert in Shangaan culture, however the lesson plans are there to allow teachers to learn their students and teach a lifestyle of healthier living, starting with children of a young age. This will be later adapted for older students and finally adults. I’ve completed two of seven units in our health curriculum. I can complete the lessons on a rolling basis as we evaluate how well the first few lessons will go.
The teachers, (who have also vowed to be servants of the church), are eager to learn new things and have a better idea of what they can teach to students. Because there is little direction at this point, they are very excited to have more direction and a more focused task. They have been extremely helpful and supportive of the work that I’ve been preparing. They keep asking for more and want to know how they can help.
Although they have full schedules each day, starting with their early morning prayers at 5am, they are very excited to participate in something new!
So, it’s yet another exciting time for all of the potential we have in the coming months.
The obstacles we face are mostly in the form of communication. This is a true test of whether or not we can apply all of our knowledge from all sides of the world. To me, it’s not worth a Stanford education if we cannot communicate with our friends in Machava, Mozambique. It will be a great time to reflect on what we can accomplish and what we will fail at, indefinitely.
To recap (+ add a bit):
- Seeds are purchased and we’re on the brink of planting our garden! The land has transformed so drastically in the past months due to all of the hard work of Papá Sebastião, myself, and Eric, (my Korean bro).
- We’re looking forward to the holiday’s to start the children up with an intro to health practices and lots of fun times for the holidays.
- I’m going to Cape Town for Christmas! I’ll be working with African Leadership partners to present what has been done here and see how we can start looking at implementing the health curriculum into the South African preschool program.
- Teacher training is our next task followed by preparing all materials for our first few health lessons. This should be ready by December with all of our Christmas festivities!
*sorry for the weird formatting. I cut and pasted from my word doc. :-/
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