A Playground in the Jungle!
There is a little one-room school in the middle of wild-elephant lands that has always held my heart. To be consistent with the same 10 children several years in a row is such a joy, seeing how much they’ve grown and how much their English has improved! Last year they could barely say my name, and now a few full sentences tumble out of their smiling mouths as they race to the door with happy hello’s. This year their school itself has seen terrific improvements, with a solar panel powering music for dancing and, bless it, a fan for the hot hot days. The teachers and principal in this tiny far-flung school are some of the best, showing so much Compassion-In-Action.
We’re excited to fulfill a long-held dream of this little school, bringing in a bulldozer to make way for a playground! Conversations were held not just with the school team, but also with the parents of the children, bringing the entire community together, and they were all so excited! We’ll create space for them to play their beloved cricket, and the parents will join us in making it beautiful, with flowers blooming right beside the children.
We’re so happy we can open up a safe place in the jungle where they can forget about the challenges of their lives for a little bit, move their bodies, and play. To give the children of rural subsistence farmers more options and choices for the future helps create a world with less conflict and more coexistence—for themselves, for the elephants, and for the land they all share.
