Pen friend letters - a chat with the English children

While I was in Namibia I set up a penfriend system with my old primary school, St Georges Windsor. It was a really good project for my learners, as it gave them a practical use for their English and their writing. I wrote questions for them on the chalkboard which they had to answer, and I tried to encourage them all to ask their English friends questions. They also drew pictures, which, of course, they much preferred!

When they got their replies from their English friends, my learners were so excited. They found it amazing reading about the lives of the English children, and it really fuelled their enthusiasm to reply. I'm not sure that all of them really understood the concept of letters, or pen friends, as a large majority of them just re-wrote all the answers to the questions from their previous letters. But oh well, they had fun doing it and they were doing some work so I wasn't going to complain!

Today I went into St Georges, and I talked to all the Year 3, 4 and 5 classes. I had printed off pictures of all my Namibian children who had written letters and I took them in for them to look at. I had also written the names of my kids on the back of the photos, so the pupils had great fun finding their Namibian friend's picture. They seemed to really enjoy actually being able to put a name to the friend in their letters.

I spent some time with each class answering all the questions the pupils had for me. I was amazed at how many questions they asked me, I think simply because trying to get my Namibian learners interested and curious was like banging your head against a brick wall! It was amazing seeing how genuinely interested these English children were about children half way around the world from them.

I showed them an example of the braided bracelets that my learners had made out of plastic bags. The pupils seemed really interested by them, although a couple couldn't quite seem to get their head around the reasons why a child would make a bracelet out of a plastic bag! Adorably though, it led to the children deciding that they were going to make bracelets for their Namibian friends and would send them out to them in the letters that they were currently writing.

I felt like talking to the children was a real success. For many it put a face to the child that they were writing to, and I think it gave them all a little bit of context for the lives of their pen friends. Some of the pupils came out with adorable questions like, can I send them my old skateboard? Which has made me think of trying to do some sort of annual fundraiser with the children, to try to keep them thinking of their African friends. Their eagerness to help other children was absolutely touching and it made me realise how willing some people (even children too young to really understand) are to help others.

 It's the St Georges day Sports day soon and I have told the children that I will be there to answer any more questions that they may have about Namibia or their friends, and that I will also be selling the plastic bag bracelets for the grand price of 50p! Hopefully it will also be a good opportunity to chat to some of the parents and get them interested in Tses and the children of Novak primary school.

'Love is not patronizing and charity isn't about pity, it is about love. Charity and love are the same - with charity you give love, so don't just give money but reach out your hand instead.' Mother Teresa

A new beginning...

Welcome to this new blog! Thankyou very much for visiting it :) For those of you who are new to me, my name is Hebe Barlow. I am 19 years old and I have just returned from my gap year in the south of Namibia, where I was working as a volunteer teacher in the tiny, rural village of Tses. Throughout my year away I kept a blog about everything that my partner Daisy and I were getting up to, so if you haven't heard anything about my adventures and would like to learn more (or if you're simply curious), then please visit my old blog at:
http://hebesyearinnamibia.blogspot.co.uk/

If however, you already knew all of that, then thankyou again for visiting this blog :) As I have said before, I don't want the end of my gap year to also mean the end of my connection with Tses, or the children that I met there. Despite the difficulties that I may have faced during my year away I truly came to love the children, and I still want to try to make a difference to their lives, however I can. So I have decided that I shall continue trying to fundraise for them, and, of course, 100% of the profit will go towards Tses, and the children.

So this blog is set up, and dedicated to one thing, and one thing only, reporting on my progress. Here I will explain all of my fundraising efforts, report how much I managed to make from them, and explain exactly where the money is going. I'm also hoping that future volunteers in Tses will be able to help with this when they are in Tses.

So once again, thankyou for looking at this blog. I don't know how long it will be going for, or how often I will be posting on here, but whatever happens I will try to keep it up to date! So here it begins, a new blog, a new challenge, a new adventure :)


The way to get started is to quit talking and begin doing. -Walt Disney