Team Cow and the correlations of happiness

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The school yard at Chikumbuso

Today we went to Chikumbuso, a community center and school in a poor neighborhood of Lusaka, possessing a whiffle ball bat, several whiffle balls, and a bouncy ball. At our first station with my partner Natalie, we explained the basic rules of kickball and let the kids do what they do best—play! They needed little encouragement to get started and took kickball by storm, cheering on their teammates and playing a game completely new to them while having the time of their lives. Watching these kids, who live in acute poverty, “lose” themselves in the game of kickball was nothing short of beautiful. I feel that American society and culture often focuses on material possessions and the need to acquire more and more seemingly unnecessary items. Watching these kids experience pure, unadulterated happiness amidst all their hardships in life made so many of the things I worry about seem completely irrelevant. Maybe there is something to be said for the simplicity and happiness of a child’s life. The most fun I had all day was when I abandoned the game of kickball in favor of a game I now call “Follow Andrew”, in which the kids in my group mirror all my actions and noises. While they may have enjoyed kickball immensely, the smiles and laughs I received from the children on “Team Cow” moo-ing and pretending to wake up and go to sleep were unforgettable. It is ironic that I had to play with poverty stricken Zambian kids, kids who eat one meal a day and wear the same clothes for many days at a time, to realize that there is ABSOLUTELY NO correlation between material possessions and happiness. By looking at the faces of Team Cow playing my game, I felt that there was no material item I could have used with/given to them that would have brought them more happiness and joy than simply spending time playing with them.

Andrew plays with kids at Chikumbuso

Furthermore, I walked away from today’s experiences with the realization that there is something unique about a child. As the children were playing “Follow Andrew,” it did not matter where they lived or what they had or anything like that. For me, and for these kids, it was just living in the moment and enjoying the opportunity to play a fun game. Having worked with American kids of the same age, I realized that kids in Zambia and kids in America are one and the same. While American kids may be “better off” because of their socioeconomic status and have far more opportunities compared to their Zambian counterparts, the simple, yet truly beautiful happiness they experience is the same. When they are playing, or just being kids, everything else seems irrelevant. What could be more important than having fun and being happy playing a game with your new friends? Despite being seventeen and having lost much of my ability to be truly happy in the moment regardless of my surroundings, for these precious few minutes I felt like I had been transported back in time to my childhood when I was completely unaware of many of the challenges facing our world and just enjoyed playing. I hope that when I return from my trip that I will be able to recreate this amazing experience I had with these kids, and that I will somehow manage to maintain a fraction of the innocent happiness that only children experience.

Andrew, a student at Sidwell Friends School