Health & Safety
We arrived at the new village community "hall" and about 60 women and 100 children were already eagerly waiting for us. The building was not the safest environment for a playgroup since it was not quite finished and there were workers' tools and electrical wires lying around. After introductions and welcoming from the male village elders, the men waited around outside or in the doorways curious to see what would happen.
Alien encounter
We began with singing songs in both Arabic and English and all the children enthusiastically joined in the actions. They were all quite well dressed but it had just been Eid, so they were all wearing their new Eid clothes for this special occasion. One parent encouraged their son to greet and kiss Ethan and said, "He's never seen a foreign boy before."! I think for most people there, it was the first time ever for them meet a foreigner.
Misunderstandings
We then divided the children into 2 groups. One played with toys whilst the other did painting, and then they swapped around. We had assumed that they would understand that the toys we had brought with us were just for the kids to play with at playgroup, but many of them thought that the toys were gifts that we had brought for them and started putting all the toys into their bags! For these people, it was the first time that they have experienced a mothers and toddlers playgroup like this. If we do playgroup in another new village in the future, we know that we need to explain things more clearly. We managed to recover most of the toys, but some went missing.
Our local friend had arranged for a bouncy castle for the children and whilst it was being prepared, the children asked for more singing so we repeated the songs.
Health session
The children went outside to play on the bouncy castle and I gave a health talk to all the mothers. I started off with very basic hygiene and health information and explained some first aid techniques. I talked about what to do if a child had fever or diarrhoea and how to make Oral Rehydration Solution at home. We then gave a "health and hygiene" box to each lady. These boxes had been donated by the red cross/crescent and in each box there was toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, shampoo, washing powder etc.
Everyone was very thankful for the morning activities and we had lots of requests to return.
