BandAid Drive

We are doing a BandAid Drive in Yabsera and Michael's class. We thought it would be a fun way to teach the kids about Ethiopia, adoption, and health care issues in Africa. Many years ago, when I first went to South Africa in 2003 for the roll-out of Antiretrovirals in the pediatric population, it was hard for Phoebe to see me go. She was little - only about 4 and was really sad. So she made a "Phlat Phoebe" which I brought with me. Who knew how famous that flat girl would become. We made her into a story about going to Africa to work with some of the nurses and doctors to help the sick kids...when a few years later we brought home Michael and Yabsera the story grew with a new "chapter" talking about their adoption.

I have read this story to my kids classes every single year since 2003. There is usually something embarrassing- like when Phoebe was in 5th grade and I was reading it to her ENTIRE school and she did not want anyone to know that SHE had made Phlat Phoebe. We had to call her Phlat Maddie. Now she is famous among the children in Westerly Creek.

The most current point of embarrassment is the photograph showing Michael eating his 1st Dorito. He emphatically did NOT want this shown to his class. Of course I obliged. But will post it here since no one in his class is reading my blog. (She whispers)

I love reading the story because the kids get to see all the similarities and all of the differences and we get to talk about clean water and healthcare. We talked yesterday about why kids like bandaids and why they are good for us. The Kindergarten teacher said, "Remember class just the other day when we all went into crisis mode here in class because WE ran out of bandaids?" The looks on their faces of very grave concern were enough to prove that they did in fact, understand.

Another funny moment was when I was showing the class a photo of Michael's village in Ethiopia one of the children raised his hand and said, "I didn't know there were such things as 'villages' anymore." His eyes widened as I told him there are way more villages out there than there are big cities.

In the end all the classes were mostly interested in the fact that Michael can carry things on his head. He was forced to demonstrate this amazing skill to the collective oohs and ahhs of his classmates (and very real admiration from his teachers.)