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Priyanka Handa
18 March 2007

Botswana is a large country with a very small population in the south of Africa. I visited a small school in the capital city, Gaborone, where children between the ages of 5-9 participated in the project. The children knew that they were going to be doing an ‘art project’ but did not know anything else about it. In order to get them more in the ‘mood’, we played a warm-up game…I brought in a crystal sunflower from my home and we used this as our ‘special object’. I explained that the crystal flower was very special to me because my mum gave it to me when I was just a little girl and that I was now sharing it with them because we are all going to do something very special. The activity was designed to get everyone thinking about special and important things. We passed the crystal sunflower around and as they held the flower, each person had to say their name, age and what made them feel special…I started this and gave the example that writing poetry makes me feel special. We went all around and the children came up with the most endearing things – some said their grandparents, one said “looking after my little brother makes me feel very important and special.” One said “when I ride my bike I feel big and special”. The most simple things…It made me realise how important these simple things are. As we grow up, we tend to lose sight of these simple yet crucial aspects of our life…riding a bike makes this child feel a sense of achievement, makes them feel grown up, but is also fun! A child gives time to this activity, and allows herself to revel in this feeling of glory…when we do as adults do anything like that for ourselves? Hardly ever. We never give ourselves the time to do what we really enjoy, what makes us feel good – what we do, just to do not because we have to. We are constantly overwhelmed by essays, classes, exams, work, the gym, doing laundry, running errands, going clubbing blah blah blah that we just don’t do the simple things anymore. When was the last time you rode a bike?

The paintings took a very similar format – one little girl painted ‘God’ saying that God is the most important thing in her life because God looks after us. It was a beautiful painting of a Hindu female deity.  Another incredible one was a boy who said his family and his home were the most important...and instead of drawing a house with his parents as would be expected, he took the time, attention and detail out to draw him and his dad BUILIDING a house together…the painting is amazing – you can see the two of them working together and putting each brick onto this foundation of the house.  But the one that touched my heart the most was ‘love’ - a bright rainbow coloured heart painted by a five year old boy who, in the process of painting, said “when you love someone, you can feel it in your body, because your heart goes booooom booooom on your lungs.” I couldn’t agree more with him because when he said that, I felt my heart going boom boom on my lungs! J

Keeps was amazing, the kids were thrilled to know that they were participating in something so large-scale with children from all over the world. I would do it over and over again – and I know the kids would too.

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