Teaching drawing & writing

One of the activities the women love is colouring. Many have never held a pencil in their hands before and they fumble to control it’s movement, bewildered at what this stick can do. We give each one a colouring book and crayons. The results are fascinating. This week Zainab proudly showed me her colouring. Each page was coloured all one colour. I sat with her and got her to look around the ward to see that the world was made up of a variety of colours. The next day she again proudly showed me her efforts. This time the picture was coloured in bands across the page. I took the next uncoloured picture and pointed to the picture on the man and asked her what it was. She looked intently at the page and then to my astonishment said “I don’t know”. When I said it is a man, she scrutinised the page again and then gradually a look of amazement crept over her face. “Oh it is a man!” In the corner of the picture were some African huts, and again she had no idea these squiggles on the page could represent the house she lived in. Wow, it’s me that’s getting educated!