Every time we have come to Africa, and many times when we're at home, we talk about whether or not what we do makes any difference. That's important to us, obviously -- it is the reason we keep coming, and not always under the most perfect of conditions! But it's also an impossibly elusive question. What does it mean to make a difference? How much of a difference? For how many people? How the heck would we even know? And so on. Usually, we just fall back on the mantra we have so often heard from teachers at home: if you can make an impact on one student's life, consider yourself successful.
Fortunately, over the years we have been doing this, there have been some gratifying bits and pieces of evidence. I thought this moment -- Theresa is in transition, wandering through the Amsterdam airport as I write -- would be a good time to share one of them.
Before her last session with her Writing Club at the Osu library, the head librarian, our friend Joanna, organized the kids to write short "goodbye" notes. Here's one of them:
Dear Aunty Teresa,
Samuel Osei Ababio is my name. I am a pupil of the Osu Salem
1 Primary. I am also a member of the Imagination Famous Writing Club. It is at
the Osu Kathy Knowles Community Library. I enjoy writing because it broadens my
mind and adds about 50 words every day and it makes me learn how to describe
and make a story out of my imagination. The book I like best is Horrid Henry.
The game I like best is football and playing Scategories also known as “I
know.” [Editor's note, T brought and taught them this game which they absolutely LOVED.] Thank you very much for all that you did for us. We appreciate your
coming. Will miss you a lot and hope to hear from you. Yours lovely, Sammy.
In the "class picture" here, the main members of the club are the little boys in blue shirts clustered in the center behind Theresa, although a lot of the others got involved in one way or another along the way.
Yes, indeed. She did make a difference, and they are right to miss her.
Thanks, Bill. Tears in my eyes from the other side of the world at seeing this. Sammy is in the gold shirt and he's a really good writer. He wanted to name the club the "Lasting Knowledge Writing Club" but got outvoted. I loved working with these kids, mainly energetic boys. After a few minutes of squirming, they'd all just be writing with so much energy, their little heads bent over their papers.Good to be home, but I'll miss those kids!
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