Far away in West Africa, adventurer Kingsley Holgate and his expedition have been muddling through the mud and humidity of West Africa fighting a battle against malaria, handing out mosquito nets to pregnant mothers and young children.
At the same time, schoolchildren in South Africa have been drawing pictures to illustrate his expedition, based on letters Holgate have sent home to be published in an email newspaper written in a language primary-school children can easily understand.
When Holgate and his team sent a letter from the palace of a paramount chief in Ghana, it was Fynnland Primary School in Durban’s turn to illustrate the newspaper, called The Times I Am Living in and translated into Afrikaans as Die Tyd Waarin Ek Leef.
Schoolboy Matthew Fowler’s visual interpretation involved a pregnant woman lying on a bed with netting above.
Earlier on, the expedition made a daring crossing over the Congo River mouth, putting its Land Rovers aboard a rickety old motorboat used for smuggling oil and hardwood between Angola and the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Paige Garbutt of Treverton Preparatory School in KwaZulu-Natal illustrated this in a picture depicting a bird’s-eye view of the adrenalin-filled scene. Her teacher, Hazel Stanley, like many throughout South Africa, displays Holgate’s letters around a map of Africa.
”I hope these kids are having a great geography lesson,” said Holgate.
His latest letter was about watching South Africa’s World Cup Rugby victory in Mali’s fabled city of Timbuktu at the end of a diversion inland up the Niger River.
Jara Kruger, a grade-four pupil at Laerskool Mariepskop in Limpopo, saw it fit to depict him as a Viking.
The newsletter is funded by a grant from the Open Society Foundation for South Africa. It goes out free on email, twice a week, to about 900 subscribers, half of which are at schools and the remainder being at homes, environmental education centres and literacy centres, said editor and founder Duncan Guy.
”When the 2008 school year starts and Kingsley and crowd are writing to us probably on the Mediterranean coast of North Africa, his letters will be read by kids in three languages. Our isiZulu edition, Izikhathi Engihlala Kuzo, is scheduled to launch in the new year.”
The aim of the newspaper is to promote reading, improve general knowledge and encourage an interest in current affairs.
Further school involvement in the expedition is the Centurus Colleges, a group of three schools in the Pretoria area, sponsoring one of the expedition’s Land Rovers and its education arm, Teaching on the Edge, which involves handing out education aids. — Sapa