In March, the pricipal of Evangélique II told me
"organise a short play concerning Environment with kids for the closing ceremony of this school year"
Play is often used as effective enlightening (educating) tool for a large public.
But I am not good at playing in public so how can I do???
I hesitated at first but at the beginning of my volunteer work here, I tried to see as many activites of YANTA as possible. So I went several times to see theatre practice of the women's group about women's rights or environment protection.
They had a professional team to teach them and I participated in it some times as well.
Also a teacher told me that kids like playing and are used to doing it so I decided to try.
It wasn't easy...
It is only Thursday afternoon when all 4 classes' kids have free time at the same time.
But they need to get their parents' permission to come to school then.
I asked at each class who is interested in this. Most of them rised hands...
I asked the principal to make the paper form for the permission for about 200kids...
First Thursday, there were only 20 kids.
As usual in class, they were out of control...
They go out of the classroom, chat with other friends, come later to join us...
Anyway we made 2 groups. I let each group choose a subject about environment and creat a story.
Both chose the same subject : against deforestation.
Typical. The story takes place in a village, which is funnier than in a city according to them.
Personally, I wanted a story directly related to their daily life.
But I respected their decision and we decided to work in detail next week.
2nd week
Half of kids who came last week weren't there...
We had to reform the 2 groups.
The story was same as last week but it didn't work because more than half of members weren't same.
I asked them to come evrey Thursday if they really want to participate in the play.
3rd week.
There were football practice (matches) between classes.
The kids couldn't concentrate in the play.
Scream, cheer and noise outside drowned everything.
Impossible...
4th week: I couldn't participate. I had asked kids to practice by themselves but most of them didn't come apparently...
5th week.
Everyone’s motivation was getting lower…
There were about 10 kids who have been coming to practice since the 1st week.
I decided to work only with them and we restarted from deciding the subject of the play.
This time, they suggested 2 subjects :
Against deforestation & Solid waste management.
In fact, I wanted to creat a story about waste problems from the beginning
Because this is really a serious daily problem right now in this city and concern everyone. The message is simple but strong.
I didn't say anything. I let them choose one of them.
By majority decision, Waste problem was selected !
The story was quickly made then we moved to practice.
With the experience and observation at YANTA theatre practice,
I gave advice to kids repeatedly :
- Speak loudly and clearly,
- Show huge or even exaggerated gestures,
- Do not show your back to the audience
6th week
I believed that they got used to playing so I didn't prepare any lines for each actor.
However, they found hard saying all the time the same lines then asked me to write them down.
I prepared lines for whole story with the team director.
7th week.
Practice with reading lines and its modification
They decided to memorize their part by next week.
8th week.
They knew all lines !
I filmed once the play and showed it to them.
They realized by themselves their voice volume was low and gestures were still small.
We repeated several times.
9th week on Tuesday
I went to the school to present my report on my environmental education series.
I saw the notice of the date of school year closing ceremony :
"from 18:30 on May 18th"
That is today...
I had been asking to the principal when the ceremony would take place since a month then finally I knew that on the day...
I gathered all members at break and asked them to bring necessary clothes and materials when they come back to school after lunch.
At the evening
"Any events in Burkina never start on time"...
It is the case usually so I arrived at 18:45 then I started hearing some lines that I was very familier with...
No way !!!
Too late...
The ceremony started on time and the play was 2nd event so when I arrived, the play was alomst done
I felt so sorry and guilty for my kids.
The principal told me that the kids spoke well and it was good.
But I couldn't believe myself...
They put special clothes for their role and some put make-up with chalk...
I could see only the end but they seemed very proud of their play and themselves.
I really finished my EE programme at this school with the play.
"The end is the most important however the process is" (a japanese proverb)...
The play story:
A family always throws household wastes in front of their house.
The family's goats eat them and die.
They share the goats' meat with their neighbor family.
The neighbor daughter who ate some gets stomachache.
The family takes her to a hospital. The consultation was very expensive(50,000 fcfa).
The father complain about it : "how we can manage to survive this month !"
Then two wise men "sage" pass by and hear what happened.
They go to the family's house and in front of the wastes, they explain :
the cause of the disease is the wastes.
Wastes provoke many diseases to human and indirectly by eating meat of animals who ate wastes as well.
Primary collection costs only 1,500 fcfa par month which is much cheaper than hospital consultation and medicin.
Bring bags when you go to market for shopping.
Bring plates if you go to buy food on the street.
Try not to use plastic bags.
At the end, everyone picks up wastes around.
It was 5 min play. They did really well !
Thank you, all !
