Day 10 (Africa) 2nd session...

We started with a game of Ampe. Then we went inside to "visit" the Nile River and learn about the Egyptians. We discussed how papyrus was made. Then we looked at hieroglyphs at Luxor Temple and stamped our name on papyrus in hieroglyphs. We visited Côte d'Ivoire where nearly half the world's cocoa beans come from and talked about Fair Trade Chocolate (how farmer's get a fairer percentage of profit for their hard work). We then ate chocolate covered strawberries dipped in melted fair trade chocolate. We learned 1 version of the game Mancala (there are several slightly different versions). We also sanded , tuned and decorated our own kalimbas. A bit later, we discussed KAZA Conservation Area and the animals it helps protect. Then before we went to the creek, we put on the play "Stealing the Sun" from Lake Tumba. We talked about how our body can only go 3 days without water, how a great deal of the rural water in Africa is polluted and how to clean creek water in order to drink it. We used natural elements (sand, pebbles, gravel, grass) and activated charcoal from a fire pit to make a filter to clean some muddy creek water. We also talked about how it still wasn’t safe to drink and would need to be boiled or placed in a PETE plastic bottle in the sun for at least 6 hours for the UV rays to kill the germs/bacteria (SODIS Method). This is how many rural Africans clean their drinking water. For our final hike we took the long trail to the creek and walked along the creek until it connected back to the short trail. When we got back to the art studio we did another play called "Clever Aisha".