Games !!
"Please, come sit!" I looked up to find a woman waving her hand toward three chairs in front of her little house. The missionaries and some kids had biked to a nearby village to visit some friends of the orphanage and were greeted warmly by the family that resided at the home we were visiting. We set our bikes down and then proceeded to sit down in the chairs set out before us. As we sat down, one of the family members brought each missionary a plate full of biscuits. My heart raced. There were so many biscuits on each plate. I wondered how in the world I would be able to finish all of them. I smiled and thanked the woman for her generosity as she gave me my plate. It was so thoughtful of this family to feed us, especially since it was evident that they most likely did not have the funds to do so. I knew I would be obligated to eat them, particularly since it would be culturally unacceptable not to accept all of the food given. However, there were so many biscuits, and even if they didn't taste like stale dog treats, I still wouldn't have been able to finish all of them under normal circumstances. As I winced and chewed another one, I glanced at the other two missionaries sitting next to me. They were thinking the same thing. We smiled at each other and kept on courageously chewing. The family went into the house for a brief moment, and we saw our opportunity. Quietly we whispered to each other, trying to figure out a way to discard the biscuits in the least conspicuous manner possible. Finally, Jessi came up with a solution. She pointed to my bag around my chest. "There, she said… let's put them in there!" It was a brilliant plan. Katherine would subtly pass them to Jessi. Jessi would hand them to me. I would quietly shove them in my bag. We would proceed to each eat a couple more. Then when no eyes were looking, repeat the process of the biscuit smuggling. We were almost to the finish line of operation "get rid of the biscuits" when the family emerged again with more snacks and, in addition to food, tea. Oh boy, I thought, we've reached level 2. This time the food was popped rice. Although we were so full from the biscuits, somehow, all three of us found it in ourselves to eat the rice and sip the tea while maintaining our smiles. Although I biked away from that village feeling slightly nauseous and with a fanny pack full of biscuits, I was blown away by the family's kindness towards us. They had so little yet were more than willing to give us so much.
bikes and a cow :)
Biking around the nearby villages is just one of the many activities we have done here with the kids. The kids have been on Christmas break these past couple of weeks, so we have been filling our day by playing tons of games. Below are some other activities/games that we like to play.
BAT TREE: About a mile from campus is a giant banyan tree habited by tons of bats. It's fascinating. I haven't done much research to see why so many bats have chosen that particular tree to make their housing in, but there are constantly swarms of bats circling it. The bats stay away from humans that come near the tree, so they are nothing to worry about. The kids love walking to the tree on Sabbath afternoons. The banyan tree has long branches that reach down, and the kids love to swing on them. They will jump up, grab the branch, and once they get a good grip, another kid will push them like they're on a swing and they'll go flying. Last sabbath, we had a different kind of adventure at the bat tree. While there, one of the kids discovered a dried-up pond nearby. He called me over to take a look at it. I noticed it looked muddy in the middle, but I went over and stepped on it, and the mud seemed pretty firm. More kids came to check out the dried pond. Then one of the older guys got a brilliant idea that everyone should line up on one end and race to the other end. The thought of getting stuck in the mud barely crossed my mind because the mud seemed walkable. I agreed and didn't even bother to take off my shoes before running. Someone yelled, "go!" and we were off. It was going great until I reached the center of the pond. The mud was indeed not completely dry. I sank. Jessi, another SM, was behind me and seeing me sink, she began to have second thoughts. Yet thinking if she ran fast enough, she could make it across, she began to book it towards the center. She went down immediately. We were both stuck. Other kids started to get stuck too and, thinking this was hilarious, began pushing their friends in the mud. It took us a long time to get out, partly because we were laughing so hard. We all ended up walking muddy and barefoot back to campus. We even took the scenic route and ran through the rice fields instead of staying on the path. I can't imagine the villagers' confusion/surprise watching 50 muddy kids running and yelling through the fields. I know that this will remain a core memory from my experience here.
Eli swinging! 
us all running across the dried pond DODGEBALL: The kids here love dodgeball. The only thing is, we only have one ball, so it's a slow process trying to get everyone out. We play girls against guys every time. I don't think the girls have won once, but we still have fun losing. The way we play is once you're out, you go to the back of the other team's court, and if you get the ball, you try to throw it to someone on the opposing team. If you hit someone, you get back in the game, and the person you hit is out. Not gonna lie, the game kind of terrifies me because I don't like getting hit with things. And when I play, I become a prime target because the kids think it's hilarious when they get me out. But it's incredible to see how hard these kids can chuck the ball. They throw it differently than people in the US throw it, but their method is effective because the ball goes flying.
pic doesn’t fully encapsulate the game but that’s the field we play on! CATCH CATCH: In a previous blog post, I wrote about how we played "hike hike," which is what the kids call American football. However, recently "hike hike" has taken a new twist. The kids decided that American football was too boring, so we resorted to a game called "catch catch." There are two teams, and the game's object is to keep the nerf football away from the other team by throwing it to your teammates. "Catch catch" is not a graceful game…these kids are aggressive and incredibly competitive. There is absolutely no mercy. As soon as someone gets the nerf football, a swarm of kids run to them and tackle them, trying to grab it. Once there's a pile of kids, others will just jump on the pile for fun. Sometimes as they're all tackling each other trying to grab the football, it will pop out from the pile, and the kids won't even notice. Someone will be standing across the entire field holding it, and the kids will still be fighting as hard as they can to get the football they think is at the bottom of the pile. So far, no one has gotten injured, which blows my mind because of how harshly these kids play. We have a lot of fun playing this one.
TOURNAMENTS: During Christmas break each year, Robyn Griffin, the American director, organizes a foosball and ping pong tournament. For foosball, you pick a teammate and a country to represent. My teammate's name was Hazel. She's about eight years old. We chose the USA to represent. We were both pretty hyped for the game. I even brought an American flag to put on our side for support. The only problem is….I forgot how bad I am at foosball. Hazel and I got absolutely destroyed. Looking back, maybe I should have taken my foosball skills into consideration before picking my home country to represent. Regardless though, we both had fun and lost in style. For the ping pong tournament, it's every man for himself. The tournament is still going, so we have not gotten the final results, but so far, it's evident that my ping-pong skills are far better than my foosball ones. Mr. Griffin serves as a referee for all the games, which is super fun. All the kids take it very seriously, and there is lots of gossip about who they think will be the grand winners this year, lol.
foosball game! 
Peter and Philip playing ping-pongBOARD GAMES: Mr. Griffin has basically every board game imaginable in his house. During their playtime, the kids will "rent" games and play them outside Mr. Griffin's house on mats. The only problem is most of the games are American, and they don't know how to play them. This is a simple solution on their part…they make up the rules! I tried playing monopoly with a group of girls the other day. I sat down thinking they knew how to play, but as soon as we started, it became clear that they didn't. Their rules were wack. I tried explaining how to play correctly, but it was no use. Finally, I just gave up, and we played the weirdest games of monopoly I have ever played, but it was still fun. If there's one thing I learned in Bangladesh, it's that you can't be uptight about anything because there is literally no point.
Apart from monopoly, a favorite game played by the kids is chess. And believe it or not, they know the real rules of this game! They're really good at it too. However, it's difficult playing because it takes concentration, and there is so much noise and commotion going on while we're trying to play. Occasionally a kid will pick a piece off the board and run off with it. When I'm not looking, some kids will move some pieces around. Sometimes, those watching will get so bored of me playing they will knock all the pieces off the board. If we actually finish a game, it's a miracle. The other day I was playing a girl who was pretty good, and I felt I had a chance at winning. The bell rang for dinner, so everyone began picking up their games, but I wanted to take a picture of the board so we could continue the next day. I fought for my life, trying to protect it from all the kids wanting to destroy it, so I could have enough time to snap a picture. I'm pretty sure a couple of pieces were removed, but I ended up getting a picture, and it was so worth it because when we continued the next day, I finally won.
CHRISTMAS FESTIVITIES: And last but not least, of course, we've been doing many Christmas activities lately. To celebrate the end of their school year, I had a Christmas party in both of the classes I teach (3rd and 5th grade). The only materials I had to work with were paper and colored pencils, so I had to really think about games we could play with minimal supplies. One game we played was "pin the star on the Christmas tree." I glued a couple of pieces of paper together and drew a giant Christmas tree. I then drew stars on paper, colored them, then cut them out. I put a piece of tape on the back of each star. In the classroom, I taped my giant Christmas tree on the wall. For each kid, I would put a blindfold on them, spin them around, then have them walk towards the Christmas tree and try to stick their star as close as they could to the top of the Christmas tree. The results were pretty funny. Another game we played was musical snowflakes. First, I taught them how to make paper snowflakes. Once they made their snowflake, they decorated it with crayons. I then taped them on the wall around the room, and instead of musical chairs, they had to "tag a snowflake" when the music stopped. The kid who wasn't touching a snowflake was out. After eliminating one of the snowflakes, we'd start over until a winner was declared. Apart from the games, we ate chocolate, and I passed out little notes I made for each kid. I think they had a really good time.
Seeing the younger kids have a Christmas party, the older ones felt like they should have one too. We agreed to have a Christmas eve party with the teenagers. We asked them what they wanted to do at the party expecting all sorts of ideas. It turns out the only thing they wanted to do was eat noodles. But prior to the party, they decided they wanted to decorate. We obviously didn't have any Christmas decorations, so we resorted to the second-best option…balloons. We spent the evening filling up balloons and making various creations to hang on the wall. Some of them were pretty creative. As we were making our balloon creations, I decided I wanted to make a balloon turtle. I didn't know how, so I looked up a YouTube video, and it didn't look too hard, so I attempted it myself. I popped it immediately. I tried again…got a little bit farther…then popped it again. I tried again…popped. I got so frustrated I got nail clippers and cut my nails to minimize any other factors that could cause my turtle to die. I'm a pretty determined person, so I decided I would make the turtle no matter how many balloons I went through. An hour later, a misshapen turtle was produced, and 10 min later, to my dismay, it was destroyed by the kids. If there's one thing I learned from that evening, it's that I definitely do not have a talent for balloon animals.
In one of the care packages I got from home, my dad somehow managed to cram an entire gingerbread house kit in it. One evening when we were hanging out with some of the older guys, we all decided to make it. We opened the box, and unsurprisingly most of the pieces were broken. That didn't stop us. We went into full bob the builder mode and fixed the architectural flaws by gluing pieces together with icing. Once the gingerbread pieces were mended, we set out to decorate our house. The icing was spilled everywhere. Most of the candy was eaten before it was glued to the house. But despite the many setbacks in the building process, a house was made. It was not a great house, but still a house. We went with the classic snowy cabin look and tried to make icicles on the windows and roof, which was a fail since our icing skills were not up to par. Regardless, it was a lot of fun. The house maybe stood for 5 min then came crashing down. I told the guys that the gingerbread was probably old and shouldn't be eaten, but that didn't stop them. They ate the entire thing in a matter of minutes.
the building process 
finished product with half of the wreath eaten! Although it was hard at times to be away from home during the holidays, the kids made them so enjoyable. Although some American Christmas traditions were missed, we still hung up lights to decorate, listened to Christmas music, and watched lots of Christmas movies. Mr. Griffin brought donated presents from the US, so the kids had Christmas gifts to open on Christmas morning. It was incredibly gratifying to pass out the presents and see the smiles on the kids' faces when their name was called to come get their gift. Mother Teresa once said, "It's not about how much we give, but how much love we put into giving." Bangla Hope orphanage can't afford to provide each kid with numerous presents, yet none of the kids complained about their small toys. They were incredibly thankful for what they did receive instead of focusing on what they didn't receive. I think that we can all learn a lesson from these kids. We often look at quantity and leave all other factors out of the picture when considering both the giving and receiving process. In situations where we cannot give a lot, if we are intentional about what we're giving and give it with love, that is enough. In fact, it's more than enough.
Comments
Post a Comment