A few months ago on a day off from school the children scrounged around for old pieces of wood, collected scraps from around the yard and spent an entire afternoon making fairy villages. One of my favorite things to do is watch children in this space; creating, building, imagining. I've watched them play for hours with nothing but a piece of rope, a few stones, or a stick.
In a world without video games, and television, internet and cellphones, fancy toys and entertainment systems, how would we pass our days? What would we create? I have a feeling there might be a lot more fairy villages in the world.
This is what I've been contemplating and putting a lot of thought into lately. How can we utilize, and embrace the powerful tools that come along with modern technology and globalization but still preserve the innocence and the beauty that exists in remote indigenous communities without all that? Can we find a healthy medium? How can we alleviate poverty without necessarily westernizing the world?
I dream of creating a life, a home, a school, and a community where both exist and are equally valued. I hope our new school looks a bit like this fairy cottage.
A beautiful documentary (recommended by dad) relating to this topic that I just watched- Binta and the Great Idea.