Where did all the learners go?

This week has been a little different at Emafini. We had heard the students usually do not come back to school after writing exams, but we had no idea at how many would not be there! Our class has dropped from 40 to an average of 18! Some students come one day and are absent the next. This is hard for Lindsey and I, because we do not know who we are saying a permanent goodbye to each day. We are thankful for every moment with our learners! We have spent time this week teaching our class educational songs, cleaning the room for Ms. Vava, playing trivia & review games, learning parts of a story, and how to write a letter.

Lihle cleaning the windows

Writing letters was the most challenging and the most rewarding for our learners. Many of them have not written a letter before. Lindsey and I decided to focus on letter writing today, before we lost even more of our learners to their summer break. We were thrilled to tell them that our students from Wilmington, North Carolina, had written letters for us to give to them! Each child took time to decipher the letter from a new friend. Some of the students struggled reading English, so we read the letters aloud to them. Their faces lit up when they read about a child across the world who enjoyed playing soccer too. A child who likes to draw as much as they do. A child with multiple brothers and sisters. A child who is also in the third grade. It was such a joy to watch our learners craft a special message of their own in response. After completing their letters, we surprised the class again. We had pictures to accompany the letters! Our sweet Emafini students saw the faces of the children of Sunset Park. We then took a picture of each child to take home to America. Our students were shocked when we told them that they could keep the letters. Their small fingers carefully folded the notebook paper and stuck them into pant pockets and book-bags.

Bulumko's picture for his American pen-pal

 I have never seen some of the children smile as big as they did today. What an opportunity we have to connect children from what seems like two different worlds.