In the garden of thy heart

Flower Garden at the Sunday School

This was our second week going to Gambian Sunday school. The class we attended is held outside, under the shade of the mango trees (no fruit now, it's off-season). In Sophia's group there are about 20 children between the ages of 3-8. Layla and Anisa also joined a class of middle schoolers. An able and patient young man, Sylvester, teaches the younger children simultaneously in Wolof and English. He first checks them for cleanliness and reminds them of this important virtue multiple times; they sing various songs (mostly in English – I'm not sure if that is for our benefit or they always do this); then take turns sharing a prayer they have memorized. Today they were each given a precious piece of 8.5 x 11 inch white paper and they were to draw a picture of a garden. Afterward, he (and I, the de facto adult helper) would write the quotation the children were learning for each one of them at the top of the page: "In the garden of thy heart, plant naught but the rose of love." As the papers were being passed around, excitement grew, then each child got their own pencil, and turned around off their plastic resin chair to use the seat as their desk.

But Sylvester hadn't counted on the fact that these kids are a bit young to actually draw a garden and then color it in. So, we ended up drawing each individual child's garden as fast as we could, and all the kids waited patiently for their paper to be returned so they could color in their flowers. There were enough crayons for each of the kids to have about one in their possession at a time, and I didn't see anyone fighting over scarce crayons. As you'll see in the photo, they all colored in their pictures carefully – following in an obedient Gambian manner. Sophia's was very different from the rest – exerting her American independence, perhaps.

Once the lesson was completed, trays with colorful plastic mugs of sweet, milky tea were passed around along with bread and butter sandwiches. For some of these kids, this would be their first meal of the day, around noontime.

Something really amazing to Sophia was the fact that these children would go off, one at a time, and relieve themselves behind a nearby bush, or tree, or not really behind anything at all. Even the girls made it look easy. Of course, she wanted to do the same thing (she is 3), but doesn't quite know how to do this, so I had to run after her as she was pulling her pants down and trying to squat right next to the class as their crayons were being distributed. I draw the line at how "local" she can be. There are toilets nearby, and if she really wants to go natural, there is a wall that has begun to be built that she could go behind. In the end she decided that if she can't go next to the class, she could wait until later.

Despite the many differences that this brief experience between young children showed us, in the end, the experience with these kids was so positive and memorable, and above all, unifying. In some small way, a "rose of love" really was planted.