“What’s Ouaga…do…?” Jameela stuttered.
“Ouagadougou.” Doll Lady pronounced it for her, as she put a stamp on the package.
“It’s the capital city of Burkina Faso. We’re sending this lovely doll to a little girl there.”
“Yes, don’t you know anything?”Jabali said confidently putting the package on the table for Doll Lady. “Burkina Faso is an Island in Japan.”
Fadhili burst into a loud laugh. “Don’t YOU know anything?”he crowed. Burkina Faso is NOT in Japan! It’s in South Africa,”he said smugly.
“Be quiet!” Jabali shouted. “You’re wrong.”
“Calm down dolls” Doll Lady said as she put a stamp on another package.
”It’s really okay not to know everything, if you know what I mean,”she said with a smile.
“Kupoteza njia ndio kujua njia. To lose your way is to find your way,”she said.
“That’s a Swahili proverb that means sometimes you have to lose your way to really learn it, so you never get lost again.
“So not knowing something isn’t such a bad thing after all. Well in this case, you’ve both lost your way quite a bit. Burkina Faso is in West Africa. All the lovely dolls you’re helping me pack today are going to children in different cities in Africa.”
Doll Lady opened a drawer and pulled out a beautiful map of Africa with bright colours and all the names of countries and cities. They were so many!
“Come,” she said,to the dolls. “Let’s play a game.”
She gathered all the labels she was getting ready to put on her doll packages.
Each had an address with a different city in Africa. She put them on the dining table like a deck of cards, and the dolls sat around the table.
“We’ll take turns picking a label,”she said. “The goal is to match the label to the city on the map. Remember, to lose your way is to find your way. So don’t worry if you can’t see it right away.
Jabali was the first to pick a label. It was Ouagadougou! He quickly found Burkina Faso and put the label there with a big grin on his face. They all had a great laugh and enjoyed the game.
“Wow,” Pendo said, “the new dolls are so lucky to be going to all these cities.
Maybe we’ll get to go to exciting African cities as well some day.”
“Maybe.” Doll Lady smiled as she put a label on a package addressed to a boy in Maseru, the capital city of Lesotho. “That’s in Southern Africa,” she said, as she handed the last package to Jabali to place on the table for her.
Did You Know…
Africa is a large continent made up of 54 countries. It is the second-largest continent in the world after Asia. Africa is home to more than 1.2 billion people. Did you know that more than 2000 languages are spoken in Africa? This means one-third of the languages spoken in the world are African languages.
Africa Alphabet Challenge…
Can you name an African capital city or country for every letter of the alphabet? Take turns trying and see who can keep going the longest. Let’s get you started…
A is for Antananarivo, the capital city of Madagascar
B is for Botswana, whose capital city is Gaborone
C is for…