Mar 31, 2014 4 min read

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We arrived at Tumagole School, which has grades K-7. This school is unusual for Africa. Most of the schools are free up to 6th grade, and after that the parents have to pay for their education. This is the school my niece Marva (who I call M) works.

The first thing I noticed is the amount of kids who did not have on shoes. The kids in K, which is grade R, do not wear uniforms. We proceeded to see the Head Mistress to get permission to pass out gifts and take photos of the kids. My niece had to ask for permission to come into her office, and the Head Mistress never looked up at either of us – she just ignored us and continued to write.

We stood there for what seemed to me like an eternity until she glanced up and saw me. Her entire composure and countenance changed and she said, “Oh I thought you were Grace,” which is my niece’s roommate.

There has been a little indifference between the Africans and the Americans. For one thing they feel that we do not greet each other properly. Every time they see each other, they go thru an entire ‘Hello, how are you,’ and then you respond, and they respond. This has been an issue for my niece and Grace – they have been considered rude because of not properly greeting.

She granted us permission to pass out gifts. I gave her a gift from the Observer-Reporter, a highlighter from United Way (the one with the light on the end), and the Sister and Friends mirror. I hoped this helped to smooth things over for the way she was feeling about my niece.

Having two headsets from Observer-Reporter, I gave them to the newly formed IT Department., which will be used by the kids. The teacher’s name is Elias (remember the guy at the gas station with this name?). I had over 90 gifts to give and an opportunity to talk to the youth about our government and Washington, Pa.

Since my niece and Grace are working with the 3rd grade, we decided to bless these two classes. While waiting to speak to the 3rd graders, I walked around the school. I was moved with compassion watching the smiling, happy kids play on only dirt. Since I have been in Africa, I only noticed one playground. One of the school officials’ stated that their government could not afford playgrounds. This reminded me of my first experience at the Lemoyne Center.

I spotted two older girls and gave them a gift from Audia Caring. This was a small packet with school supplies – their reactions were priceless. I asked them to go get me two boys who also are in 7th grade. I gave each of these boys a school T-shirt, one from Trinity and the other from Wash High. I had these boys shaking hands while wearing these shirts. I decided to bring out the Frisbee from Afterschool Buddies Rainbow kids. Oh my gosh – they looked at me strangely because they had never seen one before. I demonstrated how this toy worked. What was I thinking!!!!

All of the kids began to chase the Rainbow kids Frisbee. They were quite amazed at this new contraction. I was taken aback because again we take so much for granted. Mind you they have only dirt to play on and nothing else.

It was getting a bit dangerous because as they all ran about 100 kids or more, they were crashing into each other. All they wanted was this new toy, and they ran over each other to retrieve it. I had to take the Frisbee from them because when one kid got it they all pounced on him or her to get it from them. I finally fought my way thru the excited smiling mob to take that Frisbee. I was also fearful as I imagine them asking me to leave Africa for causing mobs to form and kids getting injured.

I later gave it to some of the older boys after showing them how to fling the Frisbee and how to interact and play with each other, and the objective was to have fun and nobody is to get hurt. They loved playing with the Frisbee…

More next time…stay blessed!