Friday, February 26, 2010
FEATURE
To Africa and back
Local students give and volunteer in West Africa By Dawn Witlin Special to the Mountaineer The Davis brothers are proud to have a strong tradition of giving running through their family tree. Their 89-year-old great-grandmother Cathy Douglas has volunteered in the Vail Valley for more than 45 years. Their grandmother, Mary Ellen Anderson, has been a docent of the Denver Art Museum for more than 25 years. The family further nurtured their charitable roots last month when 11-year-old Todger, 13-year-old Quin, mother Carey and Mary Ellen visited the West African village of Geoul, located in the region of Senegal. The family brought art supplies and soccer balls to the village elementary schools, which they had collected on behalf of a Denver based non-profit “Friends of Geoul.” The charity has provided aid to the area since 2005. Carey, director of admissions at Vail Ski and Snowboard Academy, reflected on the conditions of the Geoul classrooms as they shared the arts and crafts. “Some of the kids had never seen paint before,” she said. “They didn’t have running water, they used traditional chalk boards.” Soccer is the most beloved pastime of the village children and the Davis brothers came prepared. Todger, a fifth grader at Red Sandstone Elementary and Quin, an 8th grader at VSSA, both collected 40 soccer balls to give to Geoul elementary schools before the trip. “The kids spent a ton of time just playing soccer, hanging out in the street with all the kids when they weren’t in school and some of them weren’t ever in school,” said Carey. “I was really excited to see the boys just go with the flow...I think they observed a lot of interesting things,
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Quin and Todger Davis (in the Pepsi shirts) are pictured here donating soccer balls to children in the West African village of Geoul.
but I think they felt comfortable being there.” The Davis family roomed with a host family during their weeklong visit in a home without windows, which they shared with 16 other family members and dozens of chicken. “Every morning we ate hot chocolate and bread and for lunch and dinners we had rice platters with vegetables and cooked meats, shared from a large platter,” said Carey. “We made a joke of it, saying ‘Oh good, let’s have more rice,’ but the boys were definitely ready to have a Chipotle burrito.” The group communicated with villagers through Carey who speaks fluent French, gleaned from living and attending elementary school in West Africa. She returned nearly every year since to visit her father and taught kindergarten in Africa from 1994 to 1995. “I think one of the most interesting things about going there was
you said hello to everybody, you were always saying hello and engaging people,” said Carey. “It was quite refreshing actually because there is an automatic sense of community.” Quin and Todger immersed themselves in Geoul’s native culture, finding children who were the same age, but lived very different lives. “All of the people are extremely nice and put everyone else before themselves,” said Quin. “I expected it to be pretty bad, but not as bad as it was, how the buildings look half built, but I didn’t expect the people to be so loving with everything that they’ve gone through.” Two years ago, Mary Ellen took the boys on a trip to experience the culture of Turkey, and with the spirit of their West Africa trip being charity, their next adventure will be historically themed, said Carey. “How fun would it be to have the All-American road trip?” she said.
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