Friday, January 23, 2009

A Day of Play!!!!







This past Saturday we saw another visit by Rift Valley Academy to CTC. Last time we spent a day at Good Shepherd finishing the garden and the boys dormitory. This Sat., 7 high schoolers came down the hill to spend the morning with the Malaika Kids. This was special for both sides as normally the children at our facility don't come in on Saturday. You could see that they were a bit surprised to be there are a Sat. but still VERY excited. The RVA kids don't get that many chances, if at all, to interact with disabled children. It's always interesting to watch new people come to the facility. Generally, there's some time where they don't feel comfortable. There is something about being with adults/children with disability that really both pulls at the heart strings and also our own very personal comfort level.

It doesn't take long though to cross that barrier. Once the RVA kids realized that the children are just like all other children, full of joy, excitement and love......the wall came down. We did an introduction for the first part where the children sang the normal morning songs, recited a few bible verses and hellos. After a quick tour of the facility with an overview of who's CTC and why we work in Maai Mahiu, I divided the RVA kids into 2 groups. One spent time with the children who have cerebral palsy. The second was put into the play room with rest of the Malaika kids. Both rooms were play day really but in very different forms. It always touches my heart how attached people are to Dan, Henry, Francis (the boys with cerebral palsy). For most this is the first time they have ever had very close contact with children who are VERY restricted in all ways. The RVA kids jumped right in playing with the boys, opening hands to work on dexterity, blowing up balloons, playing games to entertain.....the kids loved it!!!!

In the other room what started out as managed areas for games soon turned into a free for all. Have to love how planning seems to disintegrate with children. Some of the RVA kids are great at making balloon animals. Can you imagine? Our children have NEVER seen anything like a dog made out of a balloon. It soon turned into a volleyball competition to see who could keep the balloon in the air longest. Both groups, Malaika Kids and RVA, bonded in these moments of play. Nothing really to think about but letting the child run free. Pretty amazing to see :)

Oh!!!!! And George. RVA brought nail polish for the girls. Wonderful I said. But it didn't take long for the boys to notice the fun the girls were having. So George sat down and needed his nails painted. He was so proud of having Corvette red nails. And once those were done he started taking off his socks to get his toes painted. And then that started a trend. Mike was soon to follow. You can see in the picture with balloons and the children, George's fingers painted. Who says nail polish is just for girls?

I've included a few pictures of the day. As you can see the Malaika Kids really appreciated their new friends. Thank you Rift Valley Academy for picking up these children and running with them.

Friday, January 9, 2009

Making Music











A funny thing happened the other day. A totally spontaneous musical ensemble. Could be considered a band by some standards. OK, let me explain. The wall toys for the Malaika kids have been used daily as the kids came back to school on Monday. You should have seen the faces when they came into the room for the first time. Excitement is an understatement. I was a bit worried as I thought they might rip them off the wall with pure OVER joy. But that didn't happen, SEP and the parents made very industrial toys. The kids gravitated, in the first week, to the noise making walls. Well, on Thurs. I heard a huge commotion as Rocky and I were trying to hold a very serious meeting (at least Rocky and I thought so) with the Malaika Moms. But no worries this is so normal. Really, it just sounded like all the kids at once going to town making as much noise as possible. Who can be irritated with that, right? So the adult meeting went on and so did the children's meeting/racket. But then I noticed about a half hour later that it sounded more like a beat. I had a break in the meeting so went to take a look. And what do I see? 5 kids have created a make shift band. No teacher was guiding them, they were left alone to play. And one child was creating a beat with a roller and wheels. The other four were either spinning shakers or squeezing squeakers. It was an actual beat. I could not believe it. Many people have said to me that disabled children really gravitate towards music. And I have seen that with our morning songs but this was truly impressive. They were looking to each other to hold the beat. Now it was no Beatles, Marley or the Stones but it's got me thinking. What can we do with this? Where can this go? I have included a few pics of the children making "glorious music". Oh by the way I should probably reference Iron Maiden as that was probably the decibel level. No soft elevator music for these children.

Also, I included a few pics of the children playing with some of the toys made by SEP and the parents of the children. One is of a matching game, the second is a ring throwing game and the last is of a memory game where you put items under the cups and children have to guess where could matching part be....always loved these game. Wait what do I mean? I played each of these with the children and my story is I beat them in every game. That's my story and I'm sticking to it. I am the king of Malaika games.........I so wish that was true :)