Boys' essays

To shoot this photo I used the 300mm lens Garrie got for me which Zeny brought to Nigeria. This photo was taken during the film showing (a cartoon film) on St Josemaria. I asked the boys to write an essay after the film. The things they wrote are very interesting. Some of them would write not about the film but on some latent knowledge they already had. For example one of them wrote (this is the transcription):

"When Josemaria was a small boy, he used to (be) a bad boy because when his parents sometimes tell him to do something he will refuse to do it for example like when they tell him to eat he refuse and when their grandparents come he refuse to greet them he will hide inside the bed. So when he grew up he went for confession and he promise that he would not do any bad things again. And he told his father hta he wanted to become a priest and his father was very happy with him and he also told his mother. He always go to the church and pray"

As you can see there is no place in the film wher it was shown that Josemaria went to confession. This boy however included that, probably because of his training at home - his parents are both
supernumeraries. I imagine he always attach repentance to confession!

So you see what I enjoy.

"Doing his thing"

Once on our way to Ibadan with students of the school I decided to take photos of the expressway at Ibadan to catch some local colour. There is one thing that is common in Nigerian roads these days: the people seem to have found it useful as the garbage dump.

The photo above shows how people have dumped all the unwanted things right in the middle of the expressway. Commuters have found it useful to take their bus and some of them use it to answer the call of nature. It was unexpected but I somehow captured a fellow "doing his thing" in the midst of the crowd.

Film Watching

Do you know that I have been teaching CRK, ie Chirstian Religious Knowledge?

Sometime before Easter I decided to give as a class activity the film
watching of a cartoon film about St Josemaria. The topic of the
lesson was actually on faithfulness, tied to the stories of Abraham
and other personages of the Bible. Before the film we had several
lessons on the topic dealing on the people of the Bible. By the time
we had the film the boys were actually more conversant with the topic.
I asked them to watch very carefully and then write an essay on the
message of the film.

It is very interesting to read the essays they wrote. I learned a
number of things reading their work. Actually I kept the papers in a
folder so that I could be reading them from time to time and enjoy
what they have written. Sometimes I find them very useful to show
parents when they come to ask about their son. The evidence is so
real they just couldn't argue against what I say about their son.