On Monday I went with Anne, TI’s social worker, to talk with the teachers at the primary school (grades 1-8) in Shimo. Shimo is a slum a few blocks down from the compound with a big alcohol problem and lots of orphans; four girls recently dropped out of the school because of pregnancy. The teachers really wanted to start an after-school program for grades 6-8 to encourage the kids who are high(est) risk for dropping out. Enter Andrew, Nate, Lauren, and I…
On Tuesday we headed to the school at 3pm and found ourselves in a room with 130 kids in it, from 12 to 18 years old. We introduced ourselves and asked them each to write a question they had about anything on some note cards we brought.
Little did we know what we were getting ourselves into.
At 8pm that night we finished reading them all. Kids wrote up to 8 questions on one small card, and topics included everything from AIDS to Obama to dating.
A few that were particularly startling:
“How old are you when you get your period?” (written by a 13-year old girl)
“Where did HIV come from? I heard it was America. Is this true?”
“If you just started doing drugs and wanted to stop, what would you do?”
“Why do men rape small children?”
“What would you do if you’d been raped more than a week ago?”
“If you were 16 years old and did sex with an 11 year old, would it be a rape case?”
“How would you advise your father if he is a drunk?
“If somebody wants to be killed because you’ve refused to be his boyfriend, what would you do?”
“As a Christian, what would you do if you found a thief stealing maize from your garden?”
“If you live in a poverty family and your parents drink and when you arrive home they tell you to sell alcohol, and when you refuse you will not live there and you are a student, what will you do?”
How do we even begin to answer these?
We managed to divide all the questions into 8 major topics and hope to talk with them about one a week until December. Pray for us.
On a lighter note, some of the questions made us laugh quite a bit.
“How many boyfriends does a person really must have?”
“I’ve heard that in American they like eating snail and snake, true or false?”
“Why is our government so confused?”
“When I marry a European, will I have to pay a dowry or not?”
“Why are Africans black?”
Andrea, how shocking. I think it must be nearly impossible to really see the world the way those kids now do. I want to thank you for ending on a humorous note--but don't know if I should ... was that a form of reality-escapism for the reader? ;) and btw, I thought you only knew one Ann with an e ... !
ReplyDeleteMy prayers are for and with you, friend.
(and why ARE African's black? why wasn't it the Normans?)