The Episcopal Diocese of Lexington, the Anglican Diocese of Grahamstown and the brothers at the Mariya uMama weThemba Monastery (OHC) partnered together for the first overseas Reading Camp this past July in Grahamstown, South Africa. This is a series of post-camp blog posts from Kary McConnachie, one of the volunteer directors of that camp. Four Kentuckian experienced Reading Camp volunteers (Mary Jane Amick, Connor Egan, Drew Eclov, and Vibh Forsythe) joined Bishop Stacy Sauls and his wife, Ginger Sauls, joined with the Grahamstownians to make a Reading Rock in Grahamstown. Other posts about the South African Reading Camp are available here.
Monday 7th – Friday 11th July: Our routine kicked in bright and early on Monday morning with breakfast, followed by singing, movement and games (while station leaders got organized) and then the work/fun started at the stations with lions roaring or elephants trumpeting to signal the changeovers. At 12h15 the campers streamed outside to play table-tennis or volley ball or finger board or tried their hand at drumming. Lunch was most welcome and then came an interesting instruction: choose a book from the pleasure reading corner and go and lie down on your bed and read! This was a whole new concept, but by the end of the week some of the campers were choosing up to 3 books and loving the time.
Our special visiting author was Gcina Mhlope – a storyteller of note, well known TV personality and author of many books. Basil Mills just about kidnapped her from the schools arts festival where she was a keynote speaker, to join us for an hour. Her time with us was magical and she made a deep impression on the children. Basil Mills gave us so much to experience on the hikes he organized, the obstacle course we all tried to do on his farm, his warthog, Pumba” and of course “Monty” the python who challenged many a fear in us……… Basil asked Stacy why Monty was given such a bad press over the years!!! ……..and then Basil also helped us create amazing animals out of clay and his son Warren helped with drawing lessons. Basil and Warren also managed to squeeze in a self defence course which gave the campers confidence in themselves. Sarah Jackson inspired many a budding artist and Elisma Hallier had the campers (including the amazed boys) create patchwork pencil bags. A game drive in the Kariega Game Reserve was a real highlight for many – Noluvuyo was so unperturbed by it all she even managed to hop off the landrover and “visit the bathroom” right next to a resting rhinoceros much to the dumbstruck amazement of the game ranger. There was even time for a puppet show during one of the afternoon sessions.
Our afternoon activities always calmed down around 17h00 with journal writing in the hall. Every adult was asked to be present to be walking dictionaries and generally encourage the children to express themselves as all of them were doing this in their second language. On Monday there were only stilted sentences, but by Thursday evening words were just pouring out of some of them. When the journals were packed away, we all gathered in the Chapel for our message of the day from Stacy. There was always such joy in the singing and eager anticipation for the next message. Just think about it – these campers were listening to someone who was not speaking their mother tongue and to top it all had a strange accent, but so many got every word of those messages and even told their families once they got home.
Suppertime was fun and enjoyable and was followed by fireside or campfire storytelling by Basil (depending on the weather) , or games in the hall, or a dramatized animal story with a moral (those counselors were incredible actors),and yes we even had “smores”. Bedtime had its own interesting stories: Sineliswe who so loved to shower Sarah would have to get wet to get her out (she does not have such a thing at home). And then of course the bedtime story: we chose Gcina Mhlope’s “African Tales” and read a different story each night. Tired but happy little campers then drifted off to dreamland……….except one night when Connor’s crew decided to get up at 4am!!! They were ready to face the challenges of the new day by 04h30. Connor was impressed at how meekly they got back into bed when he pointed out that it was still night time. Mary Jane did not have too many mishaps. The one evening Noluvuyo tried to take on the boys and got winded quite badly and we thought she may have something serious as she was not recovering from sitting on Mary Jane’s lap at all …………and then it dawned on us……….. that lap was just the best place in the world and admitting to only being slightly injured would shorten the wonderful feeling of being cared for and loved.
Our campers were all so special and each and every one had a story, but on this camp and in the camp environment all the problems seemed to dissolve and an extraordinary time was had by all. When Saturday came and it was time to say goodbye, there was hardly a dry eye to be found. Worse was for me to look in the rearview mirror as I was driving the bus back into town, and to see the tears trickling down Sivenathi’s face as she faced the end of a magical time. Mary Jane and I were in a heap by the time we had delivered them all to their homes and Basil and Ntombekaya felt no better either. Fortunately I had forgotten to include the phonics books in their take-home bags and Mary Jane and I got to visit each of our campers again on the Sunday only to find the tears had been wiped away and life was full of joy and sharing their experiences with their families.
We had many visitors and observers at our camp, all of whom were deeply impressed by the way this concept of Reading Camp worked. They could not get over at how the campers shut out all outside distractions whenever they were at a station – totally absorbed by whatever the teachers were doing and oblivious to anything else. Here’s something amazing: Cheslyn was beside himself when we said we would go on a game drive and stop after 3 stations. He did not want to go – he wanted to do his 3 other stations. Only the news that the second round of stations would happen after lunch calmed him enough to go on the drive.
The feedback from parents, guardians, teachers and principals has been wonderful and so encouraging. One of our main objectives was to make reading infectious – and we have achieved just that in our poorest school with the least resources where children are working hard at their reading to stand a chance to be chosen for the next camp. In another school the one little girl who was very shy has become a leader in her class: whenever the teacher leaves the class she encourages the others to read. Another teacher reports that her pupil cannot get his hands on enough reading material since coming back from camp. One mother says her child picks up anything that has English writing on it – old newspapers, scraps of paper etc and reads. Some teachers report that spelling has improved, others say the child’s pronunciation of words is so much better, and others speak of improved confidence. Parents report that their children seem to be more independent and able to take care of themselves. All in all a very special time was had by everyone.
Our visiting counselors, Mary Jane and Stacy and Ginger really added such a wonderful element to this camp and helped so many children become more fluent in English because there was no was any of them could answer a question in Xhosa or Afrikaans. Our young local counselors learnt so much from Connor, Drew and Vibh – it was such a new experience for them too. I really hope that we can keep some kind of exchange program going to foster this interchange of experience. Your counselors were true ambassadors for this whole camp experience. We still need to find a local equivalent for Mary Jane, but at least this ensures she has to return at least one more time to help us (perhaps many more???). And the big bonus was having Stacy and Ginger here to share it all – it just felt so perfectly right. Thank you to everyone who had the dream and everyone who made it happen.
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