We’re checking out a new curriculum this week by Donna Ward (www.donnaward.ca) called “Africa, a land of Hope”. It’s a wonderful 36 lesson study of Africa, it’s people, climate, land and animals. The included lesson plan is full of activities, maps, notebooking pages, suggestions for further reading, and on-line links. Today’s study followed the life of Jackie, a young girl sponsored through Compassion, through her day. We watched her get up at 5 in the morning, draw water from the village well, pull on her one pair of shoes and walk through the dusty, cluttered neighborhood to her school. At school she shares a desk, more like a long bench, with at least 6 other students. She mentions rainy days are tough because water blows in the openings in the walls soaking the kids nearest the wall. She arrives home at 6 PM to help her mother in their small market stall, often not getting to bed until midnight. The comparisons with our daily existence are stark. We filled a whole notebook page with observations of the differences: no running water, only 2 or 3 outfits of clothing, milk is an occasional treat, the “dentist” was a bicycle repairman with the right tool, no electricity, 3 kids to a bed, and on and on. We followed up with a PBS video called “Affluenza” found from the links on Donna’s site. The disparity between Americans, spending an average of 6 hours shopping weekly, hitting the mall at least one day a week and throwing away millions of tons of trash each day and young Jackie’s life was powerful. It has given me new eyes to see how shallow and empty our chasing after material goods is when a young lady like Jackie lives with the daily reality that AIDS will eventually take her mom like it did her dad, there might not be food to eat that day, and thieves might break into her home again. Africa A Land of Hope is extremely well done, showing life in Africa up close and real in a way text books simply can’t match. The curriculum is $34.99 US and could be a short unit study or easily expanded to a whole year study using all the available links and supplemental reading.