School Celebrities

(Alex) 80 eyes turn to us as we walk into a one-room grade 2, 3 and 4 school totally different from ours. It was kind of awkward to begin with — 40 cute little black faces with big white eyes just staring at us. Then we realized that the children were just people from a different country, not a different planet!

We began to interact with them by looking through magazines and sharing the English words for animals. After a while, Dad asked us if we wanted to sing for them. We sang “Heal the World” by Michael Jackson (video below), and they sang the Namibian National Anthem for us – which was really cute! Two of the kids even did acrobatic tricks for us, which was really impressive. We also showed them the dance to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (another video below); they loved it, and were really excited. The children also sang us a song about Jesus. They asked if we had anymore songs to sing for them. Instead of singing, Reis taught the kids “Heal the World” which we then sang together.

After singing, they crowded us, feeling our hair and arm hair, since they don’t have any. At the end, all of the children wanted to shake our hands and hug us. They were saying “Oku Heba” or Thank You. The children and the teacher seemed upset with our leaving them.

In the end, I can’t decide who that visit touched more — us or the children in the Namibian Village of Purros.

Note from all of us: Special thanks to Katherine Doherty, The Greenfields and Jeff Provost for the ideas for the songs.