Playtime

One of my favorite games as a kid was playing with those big colorful parachutes in gym class. We would grab hold of one of the handles, fling our arms up in the air, dash underneath and firmly sit down on the edge – creating a kaleidoscopic tent that slowly collapsed in on our giggles. We would shake the fabric up and down as fast as we could as the teacher threw on balls to make “popcorn.” We would run faster and faster around in a circle, dizzy with the colors. Parachute day was always a good day.

Turns out, it still is.

There are few better ways to get a whole room of Peace Corps Volunteers to smile than to bring out that yellow, green, red and blue fabric that brings us all back to those sunshine days of our childhoods.

In-Service Training is supposed to be our ‘technical’ training – where we are given real skills and resources to take back to our sites. We start learning the “how’s” of being a Peace Corps Volunteers – the tools and strategies that help make us successful. So it might seem weird that a parachute would be anywhere close by.

And it was more than just a parachute – over the course of three hours on my Saturday morning I played with hula hoops, bean bags, frisbees, and balls. I sang songs made up entirely on non-sense words. I got honest-to-goodness rug burns on my knees from crawling around on the floor. My shoes were off in the first ten minutes.

The point was clear as day: playing energizes the human spirit.

Kings Volunteer is an organization that believes just that – that allowing children to play is a universal, fundamental right that shapes the very essence of humanity. Not everyone is born in the U.S. with little league fields or bop-its, but everyone is born with an innate need to find enjoyment – even if that is playing soccer in a dirt field with rolled-up socks as the ball. It is an indisputable commonality between children all over the world. They yearn to imagine, to be curious, to engage: in other words, to play.

This is Anne. Dance Anne, Dance!

If you ever really sit down and think about “playing,” it becomes so incredibly nuanced. As adults, we find our own ways to play. Some of us still use athletics: recreational teams, working out, swimming, running – all of that. Others use guitars, or paintbrushes. I am personally quite fond of puppies and stargazing. Playing is our release, what we do at the end of the day that keeps us human. Somewhere along the way to becoming a grown-up we stop thinking about it as “playing with our friends.” Socializing and relaxing takes on an air of sophistication that obscures what it really is: playing.

Playing is about more than that too – it is a vital ingredient in making a person. It can build confidence, communication skills, compassion, teamwork. Almost any positive trait we want our children to have is fostered when we let them play. It allows children to explore the world and themselves without the consequences of the “grown-up” world.

Kings Foundation (amongst others) takes playing a step further – it can be a conduit for education. We learn our ABC’s from singing songs; we learn about sharing our toys, about following rules and listening to others. So why not teach a six-year-old the theory of washing your hands by playing wishy-washy? A week from now they’ll remember the game but not a lecture telling them the same thing.

That’s why on Saturday morning I found myself zapping trolls and racing around bases in a relay race. In a country with such a large population of youth, games are a vital tool for reaching them. You can turn a game of tag into a malaria lesson – or a foot race into a discussion about gender. The Kings Volunteer training focused on games that can be played anywhere, with or without sporting equipment.

Kings Volunteer also supplied us with two things: creativity and equipment. The games we learned weren’t classed into topics – there weren’t any health games, or gender games, or counting games. All these games can be adapted, tweaked, and expanded to work for lessons of any kind. One volunteer might use Zip, Zap, Boing to talk about listening or paying attention, while another might interpret it as a game about HIV transmission. That part is up to us. The trainers were great at getting our cogs turning about how we can think about reaching kids in a different way.

The games they taught us were divvied up by what you needed to play them. Most of them only require kids to play (and really ‘kids’ is too strong a word – more like people who want to have fun). Some of them needed basic supplies you could find around most villages. Then, like the parachute, some games needed special equipment. Enter, the Kings Volunteer Base Pack.

I was one of the lucky 20 who will be traveling home with this backpack of dreams – item after item of enjoyment and fun that can mix and match for more than 27 months of solid playing. Along with the pack comes the phenomenal support of the Kings Foundation – who will continue to inspire and support us in teaching kids through play. I felt like goofy little school girl when I got my pack for the first time – I can only imagine the reaction the first time I crack it out once I get back to Maun.

Look at all the toys!