Chola, The tallest of the group, lives with his grandmother, he is a double orphan. His parents died when he was 6 years old. He told me that he had seen his father die. When I asked him what made him sad, he said, "mostly that mother is dead and how I miss her". There were tears, this was not one of those happy cries, this child tries to be tough and "macho" but he is incredibly sensitive and you can tell he just wants to please people.
He is 12 years old and very sweet. Every time we would move from one station to the next he would carry my backpack. He was a leader in the group, however, he didn't require constant attention, if one of the smaller boys had not had a turn, Chola would hurry them up to the front of the line and make sure they had a chance at the fun. Chola says he has lots of friends and they spend their time playing games and telling stories.
Chola's grandmother sells charcoal for a living, and although this is a decent job, it still not afford for Chola and his siblings to attend school. His favorite subjects are math and science. Chola "lives" with his grandmother and one younger brother, he has several older siblings that live close by. Chola sleeps at his sisters home and is required to stay there a lot to take care of younger children while the sister is out.
Chola wants to be a driver when he grows up. He is smart, in a matter of one day at camp, he had figured out how to take pictures with my iphone, camera and video. He also quickly figured out to turn each one off/on, and how to view the photos! He loved taking picture of everyone, and he loved having pictures of himself taken as well. Chola was the oldest in my group, but don't let that fool you, when we were at the coloring station on Tuesday, he was the most engaged, he wanted his coloring to be perfect, and it was! He took his time, he was so focused and I have to be honest, that shocked me! I didn't know how I was going to convice this group of boys to sit down and color, but there was not even a question when they saw the crayons. They practically dove to the ground and started picking out the colors they would use for their masterpieces! 
Chola is pretty quiet, he keeps his words to himself, but his energy radiates from each inch of him. He is always joining in random ball games or jumping and flipping. He loved dancing and singing to the camp songs.
Chola quickly stole my heart, sometimes I was worried that he was not paying attention, but when I asked him questions, he was spot on!
He was my little protector in the compound on community day. Children would approach us in swarms and he would get right next to me to make sure I was okay. He didn't speak much English, but somehow we communicated well enough to know what was going on. At one point a drunk man walked up to me, Chola was right next to me waiving the drunk away and making sure I was safe. Another time, there was a swarm of children wanting their pictures taken, Chola sat back for a while and let me entertain them, but when he felt like we had spent enough time doing that, he walked up, took my camera, turned it off, put it in my vest pocket, zipped it up and said it was time to go! The reverse of that, was that he constantly asked me if he could take pictures. Since I had dropped my camera the first day we arrived in Africa, I figured it didn't matter if he dropped it, so I let him shoot away!
What he asked me to pray for him:
Stop grieving the death of his parents
That he may be able to go to school
For his grandmother to be well
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