Week 2 was filled with excitement, jitters, and anticipation. It was the week when we’d officially commence our programming at SOS Children’s Villages. Since we already introduced our projects to the children on the Friday of the previous week, we started drafting specific program plans for each day. 

On Monday, we celebrated 30 years of Nelson Mandela opening the Children’s Village, so we couldn’t do our programming. The ceremony was a good opportunity to know the children better, and gauge what programs they found interest in. It was also my first time trying out South African food! Huge shout out to the incredible aunties (they were the coolest). Despite not getting the chance to do programming, I really appreciated getting immersed into the day to day of the people at SOS, to learn about their interests, to form the foundations of the incredible weeks that lay ahead, to be part of their life-worlds.

Tuesday was the day when we got to start programming. And the jitters were undeniable. It was my first day of introducing my MUN-style debate curriculum. I remember filling chills when saying my name, and where I’m from, and what I’ll be doing for that day. The kids, though, were excited to dive in, so we did just that. We watched a scene from the 1992 Film A Few Good Men famously titled “Who Ordered the Code Red!” Given that I’m an audio-visual learner and by extension teacher, I employed these techniques to teach debate and public skills. This, and many other rules-of-procedure lessons dominated the hour. And 6pm came, and I was done! Even in that one hour, I cherished the time I got to spend with the kids. To learn about their favorite colors, their views on geopolitics, their career aspirations. I was really inspired by their courage, as one of them, for example, declared that even if she’s not the best orator in the room, she’s determined to work on her debating skills, with no fear of judgement, no fear of the possibility of failure, of shame. I was inspired with the passion I saw in their eyes when they debated about the topics that they loved, when they employed the techniques and vocabulary we’d learnt to motion debates.

Picture break: My lunch from Tuesday, 26th May. This was before heading back to SOS

Wednesday was the first day we did our music curriculum. I didn’t go into my LiA knowing that I’d be teaching rap to the kids, but there we were, preparing for our first music and rap lesson. It was fun. It was cool. It was fire. As you’ll get to see in future LiA reflections, I got to appreciate the role that rap plays in promoting reading and writing skills for learners. We listened to music requested by the kids, and that was a great opportunity for me and Lily to bond with them. Given that rap falls under hip hop, and hip hop’s other divisions include graffiti art, we oversaw the kids designing their own graffiti font-styled placards. They’d use this on Thursday too, which was our second day of programming singing and rap.

Friday. We had KG, which meant that we had to do programming with the youngest group in the kindergarten section early in the morning. For this, me and Elizabeth worked together to do different storytelling pieces that had a lesson. We’d discuss it with the kids afterwards. 

And that was week 2! Looking back right now, it’s baffling how time flew by, but despite it, how many memories we made with the kids. Their idiosyncrasies, and curiosities, and cheekiness will forever stay with me.