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 :)
4 comments:
Hi Nate-Enjoy reading your adventures. Thanks for "story-time" at Xmas. A fun game came to mind. You have a 2-3' rope with a ball at each end (superballs, but tennis balls could work.) You have a stand w/2 4' posts (upside down T's) that looks like a drying rack with 3 dowel cross bars about 1 ft apart. The object is to stand back a ways, take your ball/rope and swing/lob it at the stand. The ball/rope connects (if aim is good) with a cross bar(that has a point value) and wraps itself around the bar. you get 3 tries. Easy to make and hours of fun. They would really enjoy it...I did. Love ya, Aunt Carol.
cnowlin56@gmail.com
...did I say "Xmas"? I meant Thanksgiving. I am such a blonde sometimes.
Hi Nate;
Love your pictures and your posts. It warms my heart to see how things have progressed since I was there with the K-State crew in June. Please give the malaiki mums my best, I think of them every day and "brag" to everyone I can of their amazing sewing skills! Please send me another update on how and what they are up to, I have a dozen or so presentations scheduled to give this spring on the Kenyan Sewing Project and would love to include an update. You can get in touch with me at ddias@ksu.edu Thanks for all you do!
Denise Dias
Hi Nathan,
My name is Rosemary Stuebing. I'm the Development Director at St. Timothy School in San Mateo, California - your alma mater! Gloria Rodriguez told me of your work in Kenya. So here's why I'm writing: I've enjoyed reading your blog and I think other St. Tim's alumni would be interested in hearing about your work too! Twice each year, we publish a small magazine for alumni and friends of the school. Would it OK if I write a short article about your work and use some of your photos? rstuebing@sttimothyschool.org
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