This past Sunday, the 31st, at Musana, we had a fun birthday party for our manager, Haril, with everyone surprising him first, then by celebrating; eating cake and having sodas and singing a big Happy Birthday! Lyndsay did a great job baking three Funfetti box cakes back to back and icing them each. They turned out quiet lovely! And no one got hurt… well yet.
Brenda Down for the Count
Brenda Splenda is another volunteer at Musana. She is awesome. She hails from the almight Colorado and from a large family of girls where she was the baby. Her five older sisters taught her the ropes and put gum in her hair to excuse a new haircut from time to time. She seemed to have turned out pretty darn well. She recently decided to change her flight from October to December. Quite commendable. So she, Gala and I are going to be together for the winter (or wet season?)! I feel really lucky that she is here.
Andrea, Brenda and I decided that it would be best to have all the girls together for activities and recapping the previous week but then splitting up for small group discussion.
Girls’ Group:
Introduction:
What did we discuss last week? What were some of the lessons learned? How was your week here at Musana? Did you have to trust someone this week or did someone have to trust you? How did you feel?
Activities:
(These activites I pulled from numerous resources but mostly from my manual Team Building and Leadership Activites that I created during my Peace Corps service.)
Peek-A-Who?!
Chair Swap (with our old Happy Birthday plates as markers) Brenda is somehow bullied by a tangle of brown arms and legs and falls somewhat gracefully to the ground in her brown dress. She also lost her paper plate and was demoralized into the middle.
Claps About It
Small Discussion Groups and Journal Time
I had wanted to tie in our discussion topics with the previous weeks subject on trust. I am not as aware of the situations and problems that the girls deal with on a weekly basis seeing that my current position requires my presence at the restaurant for the better part of daylight hours (and some evenings). I was caught off-guard and my lack of preparation beforehand is not to be lauded. We split the girls into three groups; I took the youngest, four 12-year olds, Brenda took six of the 13 year olds and Andrea took the oldest and most mature of the girls, a mix of one 13 year-old, three 14 year olds and one 15 year old. They all had the same situations and problems to discuss:
1. Situation: Sarah is friends with Betty and Mariam. Mariam is having problems with Betty and comes to Sarah to talk about them. Sarah feels bad and uncomfortable when Mariam talks to her about Betty.
Why does Sarah feel this way?
What should Sarah tell or advise to Mariam?
What should Sarah do?
Have you ever been put in a similar situation? What did you do? How did it make you feel?
2. Think of one person you trust. Can you tell them anything and everything? How do they make you feel? Why are they trustworthy friends? Do they just listen to you or do they advise you too?
3. Have you or anyone you know ever had a secret? Did you keep it? Did you tell anyone? Was it hard to keep that secret? When should you tell someone’s secret and to whom?
After we had discussed each situation and problem, we gave out a journal and pen to each of the girls. We asked that the girls write in the journals anything they wanted: tell about when you came to Musana, what happened this past week, what do you want to do in the next ten years, how do you feel today, etc., These journals are the girls’ only. We will never breach that trust. The journals will stay in Andrea’s office and she let the girls know that if they ever need or want to write in them, they are free to.
I was pleasantly surprised when I went to check on the groups and found that Andrea’s older group was still much in discussion after ore than a half hour. My younger group was finishing up their journal entries already. I will have to tweak our activites and discussion so that each group is given plenty of time to talk about these subjects and the other groups are not bored. I will compile a list of easy activities for us to do once we are finished journaling. My only hesitation is that I want to avoid their haste in completion of their journals to go on to a crafts project or something likewise.
No comments:
Post a Comment