Jetruda drawing Shanchezia Zebra plant leaf from shrubs around the RVCV campus

About a month ago, Ashley and I set off for Tanzania. An epic trip for us, one that we started to plan in late summer of 2021 and canceled due to Covid fears. In late summer 2023, we reopened our plans, thrilled in anticipation that we would finally make it.

After we cancelled our trip, I wrote about where we had planned to go: The Rift Valley Children’s Village (RVCV). We learned about RVCV from our close friend, Peggy Curley Bacon, who has volunteered and served on the board of this amazing place since the beginning. We were lucky to travel this time with Peggy and her husband, Carter, and to volunteer ourselves. This post gives the history of the village, where 100 would be orphans have a forever home where they are nurtured, safe, loved, and provided with an excellent education until they are financially independent.

Elementary students gathering before school

Our first morning at the Children’s Village, we met the group of elementary age children at 7 a.m. where they gather on benches before school to express gratitude, to share, and to set out to walk to their nearby school all together. That morning the adult leader of the day asked about the “RVCV family rules,” what are they? Different children, all in different stages of learning English, offered up the rules…be happy, help others, always tell the truth, be thankful…

Then, they took turns sharing a joke or two before heading off across the fields to their school.

The Tanzanian Children’s Fund, the foundation that supports multiple initiatives, has vastly improved the local elementary school, Gyetighi, renovating and adding buildings, planting gardens, hiring many more teachers, and raising standards of all kinds. The Fund has also transformed the local Oldeani Secondary School by building classrooms and dorms and hiring many more teachers. The fund has built and staffed a health clinic that serves the surrounding community. In addition, the Fund supports small business development, especially for local women.

Mica demonstrating contour drawing for younger children

Several times during our stay, I was lucky enough to be able to work with about 7 children, ages 7-10, with the art materials that I had brought with me to leave with them…black fine line pens, quality-colored pencils, watercolors, good quality mixed medial paper, and markers. When we arrived, I started to collect a variety of leaves from plants around the campus. With the children, I demonstrated contour drawing, or “bug drawing”…pretend that you are a tiny insect crawling around the edges of the leaf that you are holding. Follow the path of the insect carefully with your pen. Then use whatever colors you would like to finish your piece.

I was floored by the focus of the children and the pleasure that they took in doing these drawings! They had not worked with materials like these, and they do not have any art classes in school. They all were engaged immediately and did beautiful work. They were happy. I was overjoyed.

I was supported by several volunteers who were there for a month from the U.S., and a Tanzanian high school boy, Micah, who joined in and inspired the children, and helped to translate.

I could not be more grateful or more humbled by our experience at the Rift Valley Children’s Village. We were surrounded by such a happy and highly functional community of adults and children for five days. We were thrilled to be able to contribute to this place and the people who live there. Ashley was helping Carter build shelves for storage during the time that I was working with the young children.

We gifted several children with extra sketchbooks and pens that we had brought along so that they can keep drawing on their own. And we decided to sponsor two sisters, now age 7, for the remainder of their education.

Painting of Zebra plant leaves and Calathea plant leaves by Jacob

We are forever changed by this experience. Children who would otherwise be without homes and without family, are becoming strong, talented, passionate young Tanzanians who will be leaders in their communities. In our world where so much is unsettled, it is truly uplifting to experience a community like this one. Thank you, founder, India Howell, whose vision and dedication brought this place into being and gratitude to the staff and the board that sustain and lead this beautiful place into the future.

Sunset at the Rift Valley Children’s Village

Self Portraits, JK class, South City Catholic Academy, St. Louis, MO.

How was your passage into the new year? Ours was full of grandchildren and a bonfire and skiing all together on beautiful snow despite the wildly unpredictable weather in Vermont.

We are full of gratitude for our year of work with several wonderful schools and all the teachers who are working to make learning more interesting, meaningful, and beautiful for their students…who want to create lasting learning that makes a difference in children’s lives now and into the future.

We visited one of the schools where we work the week after Thanksgiving in St. Louis, South City Catholic Academy (SCCA). We found many aspects of student and teacher work that are an inspiration to us! And we found teachers eager to embrace ever new ways to engage their students in learning that is transformational.

The Art Studio, South City Catholic Academy

One of the ways that we work is to photograph evidence of vibrant learning in the environment, in organization and materials, in student-to-student sharing and collaboration, in teacher to student relationships, and in learning made visible often displayed on the walls. We then project the images back to the teachers and ask them what they see. They appreciate seeing through our lens what is working well and feel pride in their progress as a community of learners. Several of those images are included in this blog post.

Documentation, South City Catholic Academy

Louise visited the school where we work in Somerville, MA the second week of January, Prospect Hill Academy (PHA). Likewise, at PHA there was much evidence of progress and joy in student work. One exceptional hour was shared observing in Peter Coner’s kindergarten classroom as children worked in centers…dramatic play, the studio, blocks, construction, the library… followed by sharing by several students with the whole class.

A protocol for responding to the student work frames the conversation for the students. The questions that frame the conversation are: What do you notice? What questions do you have? Are you inspired to do your own work, or do you have suggestions for your classmates who are sharing today?

Afterwards, the kindergarten and pre-K teachers who were observing shared with the students what they had learned from them. The kindergartners were rapt in attention listening to what the adults had noticed and appreciated by spending an hour observing their work and play.

The following dialogue was recorded during that observation by one of our team of observers. The dialogue took place in the dramatic play area where a group of children were pretending to be cats.

Pretending to be cats, Prospect Hill Academy, Peter Coner’s classroom, Somerville, MA

Peter (teacher): What do cats eat?

All of the group: Cat food!

Edwensky: Kitties, I have some orange juice for you.

Dorothy: I don’t think I ever saw cats eat orange juice.

Khalessia and Dorothy: Meow, Meow.

Edwensky: Kitties, time to eat!

Khalessia and Dorothy: Meow, Meow.

Edwensky: Kitties, do you want to go for a walk?

Khalessia and Dorothy: Meow, Meow.

Edwensky: I think that “Meow” means “yes.”

Khalessia and Dorothy: Meow does mean “yes.”

(Edwensky leads the cats around)

Dorothy: Cats twirl like this. And they pick the best spot. Meow.

(Dorothy twirls in place and lies down on the sofa.)

Dorothy: Cats lie on top of each other. I want to lie on top of you!

(Dorothy and Khaleesia lie on the sofa together for a moment.)

Khalessia: Hey, let’s go wake up daddy.

(both girls crawl over to Edwensky who is lying under the table.)

“Cats lie on top of each other.” Dorothy

The observer commented afterwards,

I was impressed with the extent to which kids embody animals as a way of learning about them. They really moved around like cats.

And, I noticed all the negotiation of the story and of the physical space. There was such subtlety in the students’ communication, both physical and verbal. They are developing an understanding of how to "read" one another.

This was an experience of pretend play that was captured during the one hour of observation. It represents the value of observing and of recording the words of the children and capturing their play in photographs. We now have documents that we can study together and imagine how to further support this pretend play.

There is much research done on the value and importance of pretend play for young children…role play, social/emotional growth, negotiation, collaboration, storytelling and story-acting, perspective taking, self-regulation, empathy.

In their book, Play, Playfulness, Creativity and Innovation, Patrick Bateson, and, Paul Martin explore how creativity and divergent and innovative thinking have their roots in pretend play in childhood.

What a wonderful way to conclude and begin our year…with two schools where curiosity and joy in learning are alive and thriving. Here’s to a year of learning and of joy for all of us.

Visiting Tanzania: The Rift Valley Children's Village

Learning & Joy