Erika and I are hoping to start a kids "afterschool" type Bible study in the village behind the clinic ("after school" isn't the best term since most kids here don't go to school... but you know the idea, sing, play games, hear a Bible story). So today was going to be our first day. We walked down to the clinic and tried to mobilize as we went (shouting "apena akilip" and "potu daadang" to all the kids we passed on the road.) If not for a pretty intense game of soccer happening in the middle of the road outside the clinic, we could have had quite a group... as it was, about 10 kids came. Erika brought them to the big, empty building (the ward) and I went off to the village to get Rose to translate. But when I got to Rose's home, she was making dinner and said she could not come...
So I went back, gathered up Faith, James and Stacey from their banda, and went back to the ward. I told Erika that we didn't have a translator, but we decided to wing it and make do with our tiny vocabulary and hand motions. We taught them Red Light Green Light. Of course, these kids have never in their life seen a stoplight, or any road signs at all for that matter. So Erika had a piece of green paper with "apethi" on it, which means "go" (or fast? something like that) and a red paper that said "bas" (stop). These kids also can't read, but it was helpful for us to have the words written out. Basically we just demonstrated what to do and they had a great time...
We also tried Duck Duck Goose. Faith, James and Stacey are old pros at this game now. The K'jong kids seemed to enjoy it, but the problem is that they wouldn't say the words, or they would just whisper them. We tried to have them repeat after us, but they were too shy. So they would walk around tapping each head saying something like "duh" or just a general "uh" sound, and then when they got to the person they wanted to goose, instead of saying anything distinctive, they would say "uh" again, or they would just start running with no warning and we'd just yell "apethi! apethi!" to the one sitting down until they figured it out. So I think we should pick some Karamojong animal words that they can pronounce easily and use those next time. Dog Dog Cat (Ino, Ino, Epus)?
We obviously couldn't do a Bible lesson without a translator, so then we sat the kids down and attempted a few songs. Thankfully Faith knows the Karamojong songs pretty well so she actually led them for us, and many of these kids come to Sunday school and church occasionally so they know the songs too. We sang Kire Ejok Akuj (super easy and repetitive), Kidyama Lore A Papa, and Yesu Amina Ayong (Jesus Loves Me). I was quite convicted that I don't know the songs well enough, so I need to practice those during the week.
Altogether though, the kids obviously had a lot of fun, our charades worked, and everyone went away smiling. We'll try again next week, hopefully with a translator, and we'll tell them the Christmas story.
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