Exploring Burundian Culture

One morning we set up some tools, art and clothing in the gym from Burundi to show the children because we noticed that culture and diversity were an emerging interest in club 4/5.

As children arrived and they were able to view the materials, you could see how interested they were. They started asking a lot of questions about the food, art and schooling system, specifically how different or similar the schools in both countries would be.
​We also watched children dancing their traditional dances on Youtube.

Some children showed interest in this cultures clothing and  decided to try it on while pretending to drink a Burundian drink that is a mixture of sorghum and banana juice. We talked about how in Burundi you can use the same article of clothing on different parts of your body, for example in the pictures below the material with red and yellow flowers is used as both a skirt and a head wrap!

We discussed how different cultures have different traditions. For example, in Burundi when you visit someone at their home you bring them a gift that you carry in a basket above your head. The children found this interesting and immediately tried walking holding the basket above their head. 

The children also learnt how to read the names of the 17 provinces that were shown on a wooden map of Burundi. They were proud to be able to pronounce these names correctly and explained that they noticed similarities from the French language they are currently learning in school. Some examples of new words they learned how to say are, Bujumbura, which is the capital city and Ngozi, Makamba, Kayanza which are names of some provinces.

One of the tools that they learned about through this experience was a broom made out of a palm tree. They noticed that they had to bend over much more to use this broom compared to the brooms they were used to using. 

During the exploration of Burundian culture, they developed their cognitive skills, language skills as well as physical skills as they
took the information such as words and pronunciation and put it into practice as they practiced using the tools provided for them to explore.

I noticed that the children really enjoyed learning a new language so I plan to expand on this experience by exploring other languages around the world!

​- Chantal