My interview was with Mumbe Kithakye, who grew up in Africa. During the interview process, she struggled to answer where exactly she spent her childhood given that her parents often moved. Throughout this time, her family changed locations multiple times to accommodate her father’s career in urban development. As a result of her parent’s relocating, Mumbe experienced many communities throughout her youth, however, she spoke most about Kenya and Gambia. Unfortunately, Mumbe could not recall specific small-town names, but she was willing to explain all the memories she had in regards to them. During her childhood, Mumbe first lived in Kenya then recalled moving to Gambia at eight years old, and then returned back to Kenya. When she was younger she attended a private school in Kenya, in fact, her family left Gambia because the education system was not as rigorous. When her family returned back to Kenya, Mumbe attended a boarding school and finished the majority of her education there. This contributed to many independent aspects of her childhood play. When she attended private school, she experienced seasonal breaks and a version of recess just like schools here in America. Although, when attending boarding school, she had a couple months on and then a couple weeks off and that cycle would continue throughout the year.
I began by asking her what she would play. She surprised me with her answers when saying common childhood games that seemed to be no different than my own experiences. She mentioned riding bikes with her friends, playing jump rope, and hand-clap games. She briefly said she received a doll that was a big hit in her time, but she never spoke of that toy again for the other play seemed to be more prevalent. Mumbe told me that jump rope was a pretty big trend in Africa and she played it “after third grade between the ages of 8 and 10” said Mumbe. She elaborated on the fact that her youth was often consumed with play that took place outdoors and was full of adventure. She hardly mentioned any play with indoor activities. She was pleased to reminisce in her times bike riding, she mentioned this was a time of freedom for her and her friends. They would take off in the neighborhood and stay in the near areas of their community, when she lived in Kenya. Furthermore, she explained that her and her friends would ride their bikes for hours and go from one house to the other, and occasionally stop in to get water or snacks. When asking her who exactly she would play with, she mentioned many experiences with the friends that she made through her private and boarding school. She also mentioned that her family was very involved in church, giving her some friends that she made through her religious community. Mumbe also had siblings who could serve as her play mates as well. She had one older brother and one younger sister. She then elaborated on the play she experienced with them in particular, this play was more untraditional. She humorously mentioned a game between her and her older brother. She went on to explained that “Chicken” was game where they would use their bikes, or sometimes in her case, her tricycle, and they would ride at each other. The time to play was often at her school during their recess, in the afternoons when she was home from school, and also on the weekends.
I gathered that the cultural norms of her two different communities were surprisingly consistent to the norms illustrated for Africa in the text (Children’s Play A World Perspective, 2017). Her culture gravitated towards play that was often outside. It was also a part of her family’s personal culture and beliefs to not spoil the children in toys, but to instead give them freedom to explore outdoors. Her culture seems to be inclusive and values interactional play (Let Them Play, 2015). For example, it was a very common pass-time between children to play hand-clap games as their source of entertainment, rather than resorting to a secluded task. I found that in coherence with Children’s Play: A World Perspective, parents did not construct a play environment for their children, rather the children would go to other locations away from the home. I noticed in our interview that she never mentioned a time when her parents participated in any type of play with her or her siblings. Her family allowed for freedom in their play with some rules for the sake of their safety. She mentioned her parents were not fond of her stopping on her bike rides to speak to someone she did not know, and insisted she never accept water or snacks from a stranger. She was instructed to inform her parents of her plans on where exactly her goal was to go when leaving for her adventurous bike rides, yet they never interfered with her plans. Her parents seemed to understood the idea of functioning and learning on their own, they felt no need to hover over the children, rather they let them explore and have consequences later if need be (Let Them Play, 2015).
I asked about the environment and how that impacted her play knowing that in my research I learned of Gambia having a major river running through the entire country. In addition to the river both countries were coastal, so I knew beach access was a possible addition to her play. She informed me of her memory on being enrolled in swim lessons, given their constant access to water activities. She told me she did not enjoy them and in fact feared her lessons until she picked up the full ability to swim, at that point she began to love it. This gave a new aspect to her play, it would result in a semi-involvement from her parents for they would be the ones who would drive her to the beach and supervise.
Mumbe had a very rigorous academic aspect to her childhood. Her teachers in her schooling seemed to value education more than play (Children’s Play A World Perspective, 2017). She was even submerged into an educational environment when her parents had her attend a boarding school in Kenya. It was at this time that she would rarely see her parents, thus giving them little influence in her life. Although when Mumbe attended private school she would come home every night to structure, religion, and chores. During the private school years, she had the summer season off, in this time her parents maintained their academics as a first priority. She informs me of her parents paying for private French lessons year-round, and in the summer having them be up by 10am to work on school that their mother would assign at home. Mumbe’s mother was a teacher herself which I am sure did not contribute to her interest in her play rather it added to the academic rigor. Mumbe has memory of her academics being affected because Gambia was not at progressed and rigorous as Kenya and this was her only memories of any issues in her community affecting her.
My overall view of how a child might experience Kenya and Gambia communities, is independence. Children seem to be independent from their parents and in their own scale of life. The parents work and the children go off. They typically play outdoors, and manufactured toys are not typically the highlight of play. Rather play is active, involves moving around, such as jump rope or bike-riding. Children explored with guidelines, yet no body was there to ensure they would follow them, they were just simply instilled.
To learn about another person’s culture is eye-opening and in a sense was rewarding. I gained a new perspective in the completion of this project. At first, I was surprised to hear so many childhood activities be quite similar between such diverse locations of the world. Although as my interview proceeded I realized that the activities may have been similar, but the culture was not. I saw that in Mumbe’s culture it was a norm for the children to be separate from the adults and to create their own play settings away from the home. This is not how my play was, my father was very involved in getting on the ground with me while I played indoors at home with my family under close supervision. This idea was also surprisingly in sync with the material over children in regards to Africa (Children’s Play A World Perspective, 2017). This type of independent play was associated with a pastoralist community, yet Mumbe lived in a suburban area in both countries of her youth (Children’s Play A World Perspective, 2017). Mumbe’s family also had the privilege of having a vehicle, this was to her memory not a normal expense for most families. I find it interesting that Mumbe shared this independent characteristic with a pastoralist community even though she lived in a suburb and attended private and or boarding school. One thing I recognized was the lack of sociodramatic play, Mumbe briefly said once that on occasion she would dress up in her mother’s clothes and appear professional and adult (Let Them Play, 2015). Although the outdoor play consumed our conversation for it was much more prevalent in her youth. The Children’s Play: A World Perspective 1 discusses children who experience play in a low socioeconomic status this is what I expected prior to meeting and hearing from Mumbe. She surprised me with her economically stable situation in a country with a stereo-typical status of low economy. This experience has taught to learn before assessing, in my future profession as a Speech Language Pathologist, I will thoroughly take into consideration all aspect of a child’s play when assessing them and creating a treatment plan. The given assignment allowed me to be more aware of all aspects of play and to observe and listen to a child’s play habits and culture before making conclusions about them.