Mrs. McDowell in Africa

I began the blog quite a few months after this saga began (and I plan to back-blog all about it if I can ever find the time), but I'll just do a little summary for those who don't know about this. . . .
Late last spring, Leia Rose's teacher, Sarah McDowell, asked for art donations to take on her trip to Africa this summer. Sarah and her husband, Gabriel, were planning to do humanitarian work: Sarah in the education/art aspect and Gabriel in the medical. I felt like this was yet another good opportunity to teach the girls about giving to children worldwide who were less fortunate than themselves. The greatest thing was, Leia had a hand in choosing every single art supply we donated. I also purchased a few appropriate children's books to keep for Leia and Annie to remember the event (and Leia wanted to read them again before the school year began in order to refresh her memory, I guess). Leia's most heartfelt donation was a packet of drawings/paintings with a picture attached to each one, so that some of the children would know who she was.

That said, I wanted to document more of our correspondence about this, . . . and reveal some incredible blog entries and pictures that say a lot. Here is my attempt to put this together:

7/07
Dearest Artgarden Families,

Greetings from Tanzania! Well it is hard to believe that I have already been here for one month but my husband Gabriel and I are just really having the most wonderful time. It is hard to know where to begin to try to paint an image of what our time has been like here so far but I have been thinking about you all quite a bit and thought an email was overdue. Since I have been here I have visited several different schools doing special days of guest teaching with children of all different ages and leaving behind large amounts of art supplies when I go. With each school I make sure to spend some extra time with the teachers to do some teacher training of how to use the materials that I am leaving and how to integrate more creative learning into their curriculums.

One of the schools that I have been closely working with actually has two Montessori trained teachers in the nursery school. I was totally amazed to talk to them and find that even though we had such different lives we had this common ground of teaching in our classrooms with the same principals and using the same materials. But when I saw the poor condition of the materials or the fact that almost all of them from the number rods to the continent puzzle maps were made by hand by the teachers I had to fight back tears. Chipped and cracked their pink tower only stands five blocks tall now and many of the works are made out of cardboard. Here as a part of your teacher training you learn how to make all of the materials yourself and many of the ones I saw were quite impressive. I am really hoping that in the future this school can be the recipient of older materials that we are ready to retire at Artgarden but would be ever so valued here in Tanzania.

All of the schools that I have visited, whether public, private, or religiously run have very few resources. Some floors are cement, others are simply dirt. Some have chalkboards on the wall and others are just leaned against the wall or on the floor. Many have desks but in others the children just sit on the floor. None of the schools have electricity or glass in the windows. But in all schools the children are fed at least lunch if not breakfast also. This alone is a wonderful thing about schools here.

Aside from the visiting that I have been doing to nearby schools I have also been working with a nearby orphanage that is about a twenty minute walk from our house and the clinic where my husband is working. The journey to get to the orphanage is really one of the highlights of my time here. It is all on small dirt roads and paths through mud hut neighborhoods. With no street signs or sidewalks, my landmarks to find my way have become certain small fruit stands in people’s front yards or different outcroppings of large granite boulders that dot the landscape in this area. The whole walk people yell out to me with greetings and the amazement of a white person walking through their neighborhood.

Sorry that the file was so big but I wanted to include the photos that are below. The first is from a nursery school that I made paper butterflies with. The second is one of the classrooms in a nearby orphanage that I made play dough with. The last photo is of what remains of the Pink Tower in a nursery school that I visited.

Thank you once again to one and all for contributing to the art supplies that I brought over here. The children and teachers have been so delighted. It will allow so many of the teachers to do more expansive work with the children who are all so creative but lack the resources to do so. In the end I brought over 250 colored pencils, 500 colored pens, 50 pairs of scissors, 40 glue sticks, 500 sheets of colored construction paper, over 1000 crayons, and so much more! I hope that all of you are enjoying a wonderful summer, you have all been in my thoughts.

Much love to you all,
Sarah McDowell

8/07

Here's another little exchange about the art supplies and Leia's pictures included:

Noelle: You'll have to let me know what any of the kids said about Leia Rose's personal notes/pictures from the packets. I wonder if they were interested, . . . or just shrugged them off? Just wondering.
Sarah: The pictures from Leia Rose were a really big hit by the way. Jessica had also done the same thing and also with little photos attached and they were really enjoyed. I ended up bringing one with me to each classroom that I visited and giving it to the class along with a package of art supplies and all of the classes put them up on their walls as permanent art for their classrooms. The director of the program that I was working with was so moved by them that she has kept the rest to display in the rooms of children who are hospitalized in the clinic which I thought was really touching. Now when kids are hospitalized they will receive one of the art packets that I put together with all of your help and then when they look at the walls of their room they will see a picture made by another child across the world who helped make their art packets possible. I thought it was really sweet!

And now a post or two from Sarah McDowell's own blog (with permission), my few words are in brackets:

While in Tanzania I visited several different schools doing special days of guest teaching with children of all different ages and leaving behind large amounts of art supplies when I went. With each school I made sure to spend some extra time with the teachers to do some teacher training of how to use the materials that I left and how to integrate more creative learning into their curriculums.

One of the schools that I worked with actually has two Montessori trained teachers in the nursery school. I was totally amazed to talk to them and find that even though we had such different lives we had this common ground of teaching in our classrooms with the same principals and using the same materials. But when I saw the poor condition of the materials or the fact that almost all of them from the number rods to the continent puzzle maps were made by hand by the teachers I had to fight back tears.

[Not part of the Montessori materials, of course, but just as heart-wrenching. These are all of the children's toothbrushes outside to dry. There's no running water inside, and they brush their teeth at school because (I'm guessing) they don't have the resources at home.]

Chipped and cracked their pink tower only stands five blocks tall now and many of the works are made out of cardboard. Here as a part of your teacher training you learn how to make all of the materials yourself and many of the ones I saw were quite impressive. . . .

I am really hoping that in the future this school can be the recipient of older materials that we are ready to retire at the school that I teach at but would be ever so valued here in Tanzania.

All of the schools that I visited, whether public, private, or religiously run have very few resources. Some floors are cement, others are simply dirt. Some have chalkboards on the wall and others are just leaned against the wall or on the floor. Many have desks but in others the children just sit on the floor. None of the schools have electricity or glass in the windows. But in all schools the children are fed at least lunch if not breakfast also. This alone is a wonderful thing about schools here. So please enjoy another little slide show of images from my visit to the Montessori class in Mwanza.


[Here's Sarah making Stained Glass Pasta Beads with the children.]

[Here the children are lined up for porridge. You can see the cement floor really well in this picture.]

[And now to end with the great JOY that Sarah McDowell brought into the lives of these children . . .]