The Children Will Do It

Ms. Lagen has a most wonderful photo of some students from the junior high walking up the hill to their new school with huge old wooden desks on their heads. Things on heads of every size and age are nothing special in Brenu Akyinim. And children doing heavy and tedious work is commonplace. In fact, what we have noticed is that all the people of every age in the village contribute to the wellbeing of the village every day. even the smallest children work and help. And they care for themselves and their siblings constantly while parents are away on the farm working or in the home cooking and doing laundry.

Yesterday, I decided it was time to get working on coming up with some instruments for the new music room on the top of the hill where the newly built junior high school is. Nothing in Brenu is wasted. Ms. Lagen and I were walking along the beach and spotted about five boys, maybe about ten to twelve years old, sitting on a sandy rise just out of reach of the surf. They were busily hacking away with their machetes at the coconuts they'd dropped from the nearby palms. It has been a source of concern to both of us that such young children, many younger than these boys, carry very dangerous implements with them as a matter of course.

Anyway, I asked them if they would consider cutting and cleaning some coconut shells for me in such a way that the shells could be used for a musical instrument. The children have only makeshift instruments and have begun to learn the recorder now, so I want to add some pretty tone colors by making a set of tempo blocks. Then we can add interest to our recorder pieces and our songs with cool rhythms on the tempo blocks. My Walker students will know what I'm talking about. In the classroom at Walker were two sets of tempo blocks. Both have five wooden boxes suspended on a stand. one is quite small and we call them the piccolo blocks. The other is large and is played with mallets while standing. It has a tick-tocky sound that goes vert well with other instruments. Well, the children obliged. I explained what I wanted and they happily set to the task of c utting and cleaning out the coconuts. It was no small task. The coconuts now sit at my window drying out so that I can mount them and take them up to my classroom.

One more thing. We have noticed that, in spite of their poverty, these children probably eat a better balanced meal than many children in the United states. Because they cannot afford such things as candy and bagged snacks and soda pop, their diet consists of vegetables and fruit that they or their village neighbors pick the very same day that they eat them. Like the coconuts!!! Frech from the palm trees to their waiting stomachs. It is a life that would seem in some ways idyllic to us if not for the hardships.

I am enjoying learning and speaking Fante with the village people. They are so amazed and tickled to hear "bruni's"---foreigners---speak their tongue. It's fun to learn and everyone tries to help.