Mobile Menu
Driving on the dirt road leading to my house, their is a small one story, one room building. Children from the ages naught to six come here to receive the most powerful thing on earth; education. This small one roomed building is known as the crèche.
I was able to capture the happiness and compassion in this little girls eyes. I have known this girl for two years now, she can not speak a word of English and her name is Hope. Hope is what she brings into this world.
Although the children have the sun for smiles and the stars for eyes they have to endure the hardships of poverty, violence and disease everyday. Two years ago, mid winter an eighteen month year old baby lay on the Crèche carpet, his body a prisoner to a disease his parents couldn't afford to cure stopped breathing.
Apart from heartbreak the crèche suffered immensely because the children from neighboring farms stopped attending the small farm nursery. This left only seven boys and girls attending "school" every morning. The government refused to pay the teachers of a seven pupil school and the crèche was shut down.
We are now in 2016 and the crèche has 13 boys and girls. I often return to the sanctuary of the crèche and the children's smiles. We play with the flat balls and sing songs about people from over the seas that have come to save us.
The children and I have a non verbal way of communication. I fall in love with the noise of smiles and laughter that I bring them and they bring me. I often hear the children repeating or at least attempting to repeat anything that comes out of my mouth. Their hunger for learning is incredible.
The boy looking up at me is the oldest child in the crèche. I do not know his name but I do know he will be leaving us next year to join the rest of the older kids in a boarding school two hours away where he will have to take a taxi to get home three or four times a year.
A glimpse of the kids copying crazy dance moves that I tried to teach them
Hope reaching up to me
Hope agreed to smile for me (sort of)
The kid's playground consists of only a swing and three tyres.
The king and queen of the crèche. These are the two oldest and most admired children at the Crèche. I often see them playing the role of "mommy and daddy" as they always help attend the sisters dealing with the small crying children.
The children who are new to the crèche are always skeptical when they first see me, I often make them cry by just approaching them but they soon learn from their piers that I'm only here to love them and lift them up.
This is the Crèche - my soul lies here as does Africa's
