Musings...

I am attempting to write a series of short essays/articles about certain things that have got me thinking. I may send a few to the Arusha Times (who are keen to publish articles from volunteers) and maybe the local press might be interested to see the thoughts of a Kirkby girl.

Any, here is the first. Enjoy!

Kids are kids

I have the privilege of teaching 70 10-14 year olds in a Tanzanian Primary school for three months. Two months through and I feel as if I am just beginning to understand life here – as much as you ever can.

Carefully, I approached my time in Sekei with few expectations. As a white middle-class Western girl I have been part of the masses swept up by the preconception that every African child walks 3 miles to a mud hut school in rags and has only a few grains of rice to nibble on humbly. I am sure this is true of some places, but I could not imagine that this was true of an entire continent.
Our introduction to the pupils of Sekei Primary was gloriously stereotypical: hundreds of smiling, open faces cheering and clapping and clinging to our arms. A touch of the “oh, thank heavens you white people have come…”
Teaching begins and we soon learn that this is a practiced show to welcome the steady stream of eager ‘mzungus’ (white travelers). Our golden days soon wear off and we see the far more preferable everyday running of school-time lives, to which we are amusing accessories for a long while.

There are pupils in my class who have lost a parent, who have HIV, whose clothes are tattered, who wake up at 5.30 to clean the house before walking 2 kilometers to get to school. So far so very ‘charity campaign’. But these are the selfsame children who pass notes in class, snigger at biological diagrams, play the clown spurred on by their friends, and ask us to give them ‘biscuitees’ or the older ones rudely demand money. It does not seem too dissimilar to my comfortable, well equipped school days.

This leads me to consider if there are prescribed roles in society that are merely played by different actors. If I went to the Himalayas or the heart of New York, would I see the same?
I think the well-excercised ‘nature versus nurture’ debate comes into this. It appears to me from the little time I have spent in an African culture that ‘kids are kids’ wherever you are. There are, however, subtle differences that are shaped by nurture. These children do not know what a Playstation is, but tell them and they will want one. Ask them who their hero is and they will say “Rinaldo”. Their footballs are made from rags and string and their toys are cars made from plastic bottles. Do not get me wrong though, there are many households that can afford televisions and poor-quality DVDs, even if they do sit in a two roomed house. Parents in a profession can save to pay for school fees and some luxuries.

I asked the cheeky-chappy class joker, Daniel, whether money can make you happy. “yes” he says without a moment’s hesitation. “Really?” I challenge, expecting him to be thinking of the material gain, but he stops me in my tracks and restores my faith in human goodness. “No. When I go to America I will make lots of money and give it to people in Tanzania who have no mother or father. I will make a house for them and give the rest to the church.” How many children themselves in America (or indeed Britain) would say that they would spend their wealth on building an orphanage? Precious few, I would wager.

So what conclusions can I draw? I feel that there are characteristics that come to fluition in any form of society, but that there are small but significant differences in the expression of these formulae; one child might play on a Nintendo Wii, one child might draw a hopscotch in the dust. Once child might want to become rich to get a nice house and sports car, another might want to spend his money for the good of an impoverished society.
I have many happy, enthusiastic, warm-hearted children under my wing, but lurking among them is the little oick who stole an iPod from us! Kids are, fundamentally, kids, wherever you are.