Back in early June we celebrated World Children's Day (June 1) during three days of fun at Chitengo with kids from the local communities of Nhambita, Vinho, and Casa Banana, and our own Chitengo Camp. The kids went on a game drive, providing the first opportunity ever for many to see some of Mozambique's native fauna. They also attended a workshop led by a local artist on making beaded bracelets and earings and learned how to plant native trees seedlings for reforestation projects.
And of course we also just played! Kids from Chitengo and Casa Banana performed dances and songs, we had a great blindfold game (sort of like Marco-Polo), had a "balloon festival" with hundreds of balloons inside a huge mosquito net -- as close to a Chuck-E-Cheese plastic ball jumping pit as these kids will get (thankfully, in my opinion!) and played a rousing inter-village football/soccer game.Our colleague Baldeu Chande, Director of Community Relations, wrote some new lyrics to commonly-known Mozambican songs - here is one of my favorites:
I went to Gorongosa National Park
Back in the bush
I saw a big elephant
The elephant
Is also Mozambican
The elephant
Also has a right to life
[Shameless self promotion: to read more about this fun event, including more photos and lyrics, visit http://www.gorongosa.net/news/news.php?l=eng.]
