Hello to all our Human In Love families. Hope you are doing well.
This is Jun Kwon Park, manager of Human In Love’s Burundi branch.
I would like to share short and cheerful news this time. Like I mentioned in the last article our students are having winter classes through begging of November until February. So our students are currently busy studying together, especially focusing on English and in subjects that they are lacking at.
Considering the fact that they are showing this much passion even in the winter break, we were thinking that it would be great if we could go with some snacks in our hand to rest and have fun. So we did. Through outdoor activities we had fun by playing outside together and sharing delicious foods.
<Children having fun>
On 9:30 Tuesday 9th of December, we gathered in the class that we were taking winter English class. As they have already smelt the smell of local donuts and samosa (Indian style fired triangle dumping) the children greeted me with extra joy. I gave out one Human In Love T-shirts to each of the student, and we took a group photo before we began the outdoor activity. Everybody seemed so excited.
<Group photo with Human In Love T-shirt.>
And we were off to the backyard of the class. Some students were behaving like adults, some students were shy, some were fooling around, some were hugging each other. They were surely children.
<The gap between two goal posts was quite far away. Students played football in this field.>
The first match began with football. We divided students in to two groups with similar proportion of guys and girls. I also played a part in this football match. I was a bit concerned if kids would be uncomfortable playing with me, but the worries were useless. Our children warmly welcomed me with amazed and glad looks on their face.
I ride bicycles and work out every day, but I have to admit that it was a tough call to play with teenagers in 1500m yard. It was a bit of a bitter moment for me since I was never like before when I was only 32, but this never mattered since it made me so happy to see our students play around and be happy.
Meanwhile, I also was amazed by our girls. It was a great to see our girls run that fast and work out so well. Interests and talents in sports could be different from those of the guys, but I was truly amazed by their interests and attitude toward sports.
Close game went on till it resulted with 1:1 draw. Some of the students amazed me by saying how nobody lost and both teams won. Our students were really thinking of one another and this really made me think that they were awesome.
<Volleyball game which girls played a big part>
Next game was volleyball. While playing volleyball, we played in 4 teams of English class. We played it in a tournament way, one who wins 20 points first gets to win. We played until we had 1st to 4th in line. We decided to give the final winner team a little prize.
Without a doubt girls played a bigger part in volleyball than guys. It was unexpected to realize how interesting it was to see amateurs play such an interesting game. After the thrilling game we came up with a final winner, and we moved in to the class to have some snacks.
<Students enjoying a snack time>
We couldn’t prepare something expensive but we prepared some donuts and samosa (Indian style fired triangle dumping) with drinks. It felt wonderful to share food after playing with each other.
After the joyful snack time students came in front with some team-shows they prepared during English classes.
<First team that came up with in English group-show>
Two teams in total presented. All of them were very humorous and joyful but also full of wisdom at the same time. First story was about how you result with bad ending if you are used to palpable lies, while second story was about what happens if you don’t study hard, and why studying is so important.
<Second team hugged each other during the show.>
I hope that in the end of the day, they would fully open their hearts to me and come to me with their personal issues just like they do to their close brothers.
Rwanda,
Jun Kwon Park
After a whole round of outdoor activities and shows we couldn’t help but smile to each other constantly. Sometimes I had a feeling that some kids were feeling a bit uncomfortable with me, but through this session I could realize they were slowly opening their doors to me, and this made me so happy.
Contents were a bit obvious, and the code of humor was quite different from Korea. However, I was amazed by how our kids dealt with the story in their own funny and solemn way using English.
