By Kristine Thomas
Joey Benguerel knows his friend Sherdrek likes candy and that his family grows their own food.
Julianna Sakar tells her friend Diji about her interest in Irish dancing and basketball.
Sakar and Benguerel aren’t using Facebook, text messages or even the telephone to communicate with their friends.
Instead, they are writing letters.
“Getting a text message is not as fun as getting a letter,” fourth-grader Amity Irving said. “You learn more about a person from getting a letter.”
Fourth-grade students in teacher Kate Russell’s class at Robert Frost Elementary School are pen pals with students in a village in Malawi, Africa.
As she braided strings of green, red and orange for a friendship bracelet, Sakar said she enjoys writing “back and forth with her pen pal.”
“It’s fun to connect with other people,” Sakar said. “This is the first time I wrote to someone from outside the United States.”
Russell said the idea for pen pals was inspired by former teacher Maggie Heider, who traveled to Africa in December with her son Paul Scoville, who was in the Peace Corp and now lives in the Virgin Islands.
“The children asked Paul and I if we could arrange pen pals for them,” Heider said. “They wrote letters and we delivered them to children in the Virgin Islands where Paul lives and here in Silverton. For the children to have a pen pal in America is like a dream come true.”
Heider said many of the children in Malawi are orphans and live in poverty.
“I think our students are learning that there are wonderful, fabulous, kind and sweet people in the world and that many people aren’t as fortunate as they are,” Heider said. “Having pen pals has opened our students’ eyes about other places in the world.”
Benguerel has learned his pen pal lives in a “poor place.” On his letter, he drew pictures of dragons and spaceships.
Aaron Versteeg’s pen pal “Vitumbiko Ehimaliro” wrote to him about farming. “At first, I didn’t really know what to write about so I wrote to her about playing outside and Sponge Bob,” he said. “I didn’t think she knew who Sponge Bob was so I described to her that Sponge Bob is a sponge that lives in the sea.”
Carson McVay told her pen pal “Chawangwa” about her cat named Brady, playing soccer and her love of reading.
“I like writing to other people so I get to know what their life is like and how it is different from mine,” McVay said.
Robert Frost students have learned what their pen pals call futbal is what they call soccer and their pen pals often have to walk many miles to attend school.
In many ways, the Robert Frost students have learned that their pen pals are like them. They like many of the same activities like drawing, reading, playing outside and participating in sports.
Natalie Bruner enjoys receiving letters from her pen pals.
“A pen pal is a nice way for you to make friends with other people you don’t know,” Bruner said, “and I get to learn about someone and some place new.”
