OF PUPPETS, BROKEN POTS, FLAWS AND THINGS IN BETWEEN

Our audience is mainly made up of children from the ages of 8 to perhaps 16. Interesting combination of both boys and girls. Yesterday we invited the puppets into the classroom and kids took off. it was perhaps one of the most entertaining segment i'd had all day. Eventually after learning that hand puppets don't actually talk to you and they don't in fact bite we had almost every one in a class of 70 decide they wanted to stand in front of the class, sing , recite poems and give us stories. I was not surprised that even the usually very shy ones had something to say while they simply opt to be silent.

Today however the crowd was a little more older and mature. We did the broken pot again. There is simply something about that story. The water bearer knew all along that one of the pots was broken and even went to the point of planting flower seeds along its path so that whenever they came back from the river, it would water the seeds. The final point hit the nail on the head...." Each of us has our own unique flaws. We are all cracked pots, but its the cracks and flaws we each have that make our lives together so very interesting and rewarding. We've just got to take each person for what they are and look for the good in them. There's alot of good out there.

We asked the kids  to write a letter to their future children. i want to write out a bit of what they wrote...
1) My dear children, I am writing this letter when i am 13 years old. I am telling you that when i was in lower classes, i used to eat papers and throw them at the teacher. Please do not do this because the teacher used to be very sad

2) My dear lovely children, i want you to know that i am a lazy person in my home and in class. But that doesn't mean that you shouldn't be good. I am writing from your past to you and i wish you get this letter

3)I want to tell you my dear future children that i was busy watching television in my home and i was always the last in class. I want to tell you that you should be reading all the time in the class and outside so that you have good marks.

I wondered to myself, if they know so much about their flaws and would in fact advice their future children not to be like them, why don't they then change now? What is holding them back?
THEN ...i looked into their background. Maybe we have looked so much into what we don't have that we don't see what we can be.
INSPIRE NYERI KENYA