Summer Serve and Learn 2011: Read and Play

Kirsta, Lexi and Helen lead the kids in "Brown Bear, What Do You See."

The first of GHEI’s Summer Serve and Learn sessions has begun!  With the Read-a-Thon entering the home stretch, Lexi Greenwald, Krista Nickerson, and Helen McDonald have arrived to lend a hand, and also host some literacy themed outreaches at the local primary schools and at the Joe Kwart Memorial Community Center.  One of the themes this year is proper care of books, a theme that is especially important in Humjibre’s harsh humid environment.  The weather can shorten the lives of books of considerably, but the zeal of the 507 (!) students signed up for Read-a-Thon 2011 is also an obvious factor.  Some of the most sought after books bear the scars of the hundreds of small hands that have turned their pages: broken covers, fingerprint smudges, and ripped pages.  (By the way, the most popular books that I’ve noticed are:  the always engrossing Where’s Waldo?,  the Ghanian themed picture books by Kathy Knowles, Five Little Monkeys, any number of the Junior African Writer Series books, the inter-species hijinx of Curious George, and, a little surprisingly, Yoga for Families)

The centerpiece of the outreaches will be the introduction of a song, an ode to the virtues of gentle book reading in English and Twi sung to the tune of Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star.  Translation was done with the help of Christina and Happy, but the volunteers and the rest of the education team will be performing it together.   What the handwashing song has done for clean hands, the education team hopes this song will do for the lifespan of books in the library.

                Gentle, gentle with your book

                So you and I can take a look

                Don’t bend your book or drop it down

                Or your book will have a frown

Friday morning, the volunteers and the education team spent some time rehearsing the song in both languages.  It was a linguistic baptism by fire for the volunteers as they had yet to even have their first lesson in Twi!  Tongue tied and confused, the volunteers sat with Mensah immediately afterwards to begin their lessons in Twi.  Mente aseԐ!

In the afternoon, as the swarming mob of readers gathered outside the library, Lexi, Krista, and Helen prepared their theme day in the community center.   The theme was “Animals”, and the primary school students were led out from the library class by class.  An age specific book was read to each group, questions were asked, a small spelling bee took place, and then a game was played (also involving particular animals).  Meanwhile, across the way at the Library the Read-a-Thon buzzed away with all the other students…

Something that has impressed the volunteers greatly is the eagerness of these students:  “As soon as they knew exactly what we were asking, almost all their hands would go up.  And as soon as we would look for more answers, half the kids already had their hands up!” Krista said.  Helen was also impressed with their eagerness but also by how well they conducted themselves in the community center.  “I was really surprised at how quiet and well behaved they were.  I think they were a little afraid of me at the beginning.  I’m not used to kids being scared of me!”  The students got comfortable fast though, and levels of exuberance were back to normal by the time the game began.  Normal, that is, for someone like me who has been reading and sweating with these kids for two weeks already.  To the volunteers, the energy level was impressively high.  “As soon as one class would leave, another group would already be running in,” according to Krista.

With all this excitement, who can fault these kids for getting a little overzealous with the library's copy of Yoga for Families? 

The P1 class (and Happy!) gets ready for their lesson

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