We all loaded the buses heading for either a primary school or a high school. We were all excited about getting to interact with more children and to get to play with them. My community group went to a primary school. When we arrived we were told that the students were in the middle of exams and we were shown a room to sit in and wait. It gave us some time to ask a few questions to try to find out as much about the students and how we could be most effective in our short time. We were finally shown to the classroom of students that we would be working with and we all introduced ourselves. There were about eighty students sitting in the classroom eager to meet us. Next we took them outside and divided them up into two groups. We tried the human knot game and several others but it was hard to do with such a large group. We then told them to circle up so that everyone could take turns showing us a dance. All of the children loved this idea and before we knew it they had each of us in the center of the circle joining them.
We finally headed back into the classroom with the students. Once back inside we spent time answering some of their questions. A lot of them had questions about America and about of feelings about South Africa. We also asked several of the children what they wanted to be when they grew up. It was so exciting to hear all of the big dreams that they had for their futures. We tried to encourage them to stay in school and to not give up their dreams in order to make their dreams come true. We also asked the children who their role model was. Several of the children chose American celebrities but several children said their teachers. It showed how important these teachers are to these children and how much they look up to them. We explained to them a little about the Global L.E.A.D. program and several of the children thanked us for coming. The children all sang their national anthem for us and it sounded so beautiful that when they asked us to sing I was a little nervous. It finally came time for us to leave and as I was walking away from the school I realized that I may have come to the school thinking I could teach the children something but I definitely walked away having learned a lot from them.
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