Rappin'

My schedule at the orphanage changes very little, but today was one of those days that was different. A few weeks ago, I was informed that other volunteers would be in charge of the activities on Mondays and Saturdays. There have been other days when I have shown up to the orphanage only to learn that the kids would only be there for a few hours. On those days, I have simply spent the remainder of the time in the baby department. I can't complain about that because those babies are also very cute. However feeding babies can get old after four and a half hours of it. Today was one of those days. When I learned that the kids would be leaving the orphanage only an hour and a half later, I asked the woman who informed me of this if they had a regular schedule when they left the orphanage. The answer was no. They didn't have a set schedule. That does make planning my days a bit more difficult, but that's also to be expected. Today the difference came when I was invited to go with them to the center. I was thrilled to accept. Eleven o'clock came up rather quickly and the bus loaded even quicker. Apparently I wasn't the only one who was excited for a change of scenery. We also didn't even have to wait to arrive at the other center for the fun to begin. As we pulled away from the orphanage, the bus driver turned up the music and the kids busted out some dance moved in the aisles. I was rather impressed at how good some of them were. All of them seemed to have a natural sense of rhythm, even the kids who really struggle understanding how to play the piano. After a bit of an adventure in trying to find the center, we finally reached the center which was really couple of dance studios in a mall. The kids from the orphanage made up just over half of the group of kids there. The rest of the kids had families who paid for them to come. It was interesting to see the difference in the development levels between the two groups as the day went on. Maxim was the dance instructor in the first room. They went through a series of warm-ups and then worked on a set dance they have been learning. I have no idea what style of dance it was, but the dance moves were things you see at dance parties in America. At this point, there wasn't a very big gap between the kids from the orphanage and the other kids. However, the other kids were a lot more focused and, generally speaking, they picked up the dance a lot quicker. A McDonald's lunch break was the next item of business. All of the children were very excited. After that, we went into another room where the kids were learning about rap. They had already made up a rap about learning how to read and write a few days before. It wasn't a very long or difficult rap, so it only took one kid about three minutes to teach me the rap they had created as a group. Then all of the kids split up into smaller groups to make up another rap. Music was pumping in the room to give the kids a nice beat to work with. It wasn't long before lyrics started flowing around the room. The only thing was that they were all coming from the kids from normal families and not the kids in the orphanage. I was pleasantly surprised at how well those kids could read and write. Then I looked at the kids from the orphanage. They had given up trying to create a rap. Some were drawing. Others were bouncing off the walls. I also noticed that one boy had even misspelled his name on the corner of his drawing. Shortly after that, one of the other women also pointed out the developmental gap. In her opinion, the cause of the gap is the fact that the kids in the orphanage don't have a normal family. As much as the employees try to create a stable and positive environment at the orphanage, it's just too hard. It's also hard for a child to develop at a normal rate when their 'normal' family situation is also crazy. Throughout the summer, I've found it interesting that the kids prefer to have me draw pictures for them. They prefer to have me roll out their play dough. They prefer to have me color pictures for them. They also don't think they can figure out how to play the piano. They just don't believe that they can do it themselves. At times I think their favorite phrase is “Ma Ba'arif.” Or “I don't know.” Sometimes, I don't know how to respond to that. At other times, I simply affirm that they really do know how to do it. After moments like that, it's really neat to see them focus and do what I had asked them to do. Bravo 'Aliek! Shatar!

=)