Global News Podcast - The Happy Pod: Uniting generations with a splash

Episode Date: August 24, 2024

We hear about a huge summer water fight that brings joy to young and old at a preschool with a difference. All Seasons in Minnesota is run inside a care home for older people -- where the children learn from their elders, and make them smile. Also: How breastfeeding women helped an Orangutan at Dublin Zoo learn to care for her baby. The first person to swim from Italy to Albania tells us about the gruelling event - and how a delivery of ice cream in the middle of the sea kept her going. We meet the Nigerian table tennis players making history as the first African couple to compete at the Paralympics. And we hear about a new version of London's famous tube map.Our weekly collection of happy stories and positive news from around the world.

Hello, this is the Global News Podcast from the BBC World Service, with reports and analysis from across the world. The latest news seven days a week. BBC World Service podcasts are supported by advertising. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening to BBC's award-winning news podcasts. But did you know that you can listen to them without ads? Get current affairs podcasts like Thank you. Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. Hi, my name is Luke. I'm four years old. My name is Grandma Miriam and I'm 88. Hi, my name is Elliot and I'm five and a half.

My name is Grandma Carol. Hello, my name is Riley and I'm four and a half. Hi, I'm Sarah from All Seasons Preschool and you're listening to The Happy Pod. I'm Bernadette Keogh and in this edition... A lot of people are going to get whacked. celebrating summer with the joy of an intergenerational water fight the breastfeeding women that helped an orangutan care for her baby if people wanted to they took off their tops and their bras and sat there with major showing her exactly what she needed to do it was women supporting women at its best, regardless of species. And how trusting her team helped Eva Buzo become the first person to swim from Italy to Albania. My team was like, the rock is just there, but I couldn't see it. And I thought they

were just getting me to swim into the darkness. And I said, like, are you mad? Plus the leopard who found a mate through online dating. You're listening to The Happy Pod from the BBC World Service. We start in Minnesota at a preschool with a difference. Hi, my name is Charlotte. I'm five years old. Hi, my name is Luke. I'm five years old. Hi, my name is Luke. I'm four years old. My name is Grandma Miriam, and I'm 88.

We love Grandma Miriam so much. Hi, my name is Elliot, and I'm five and a half. My name is Grandma Carol. Hello, my name is Riley, and I'm four and a half. My name is Grandma Sheila, and I right now am 82 years old. 82. 82, yes. At all seasons preschool, the children have daily interactions with the seniors at a care home in the same building.

They call them grandmas and grandpas. And every summer, the two generations gear up for a huge water fight. What do you think is going to happen today at Water Wars? Oh, I think a lot of people are going to get wet. Thank you. Everybody won. Everybody won. The Happy Pods' Holly Gibbs has been speaking to the preschool's director, Sarah Kern, and started by asking the all-important question, who usually wins?

It's hard to say. It's very rare to have a group surrender. Usually it's a draw and everyone's quite happy with that. It just sort of ends when we finally run out of water and everyone is absolutely drenched. That's kind of when we call it. Water Wars has gained this wonderful reputation over the years. As this summer tradition, that's just a wonderful experience and

memory for everyone involved. Do you have a favorite memory from a previous water war? So many snapshots are running through my mind of seniors just drenched. We had a favorite grandpa, his name was Grandpa Al. I just remember him completely decked out from head to toe in a shower cap, goggles, a poncho, just armed with his water blaster, just laughing hysterically as he blasted the kids. I think that's probably one of my favorite memories. I love that. Do the grandmas and grandpas have a lot to do with the day to day schooling of the children? Some more than others. So we have our grandmas and grandpas that are very special to the children and we build a long-term relationship with those seniors. So those are often our senior readers who will come on a weekly basis to read to the

children, to play games with the children. And we also daily go up to the memory care units in the buildings. So those people become very special to us. And that's a huge part of our curriculum. Do you think that the children have a more enriched preschool experience because of the elders? Absolutely. I can't say enough what an impact being with the seniors has on the children. I think both groups do for each other something no other age group could possibly do for them. The children bring to the seniors that liveliness, that spontaneity, that excitement that's missing from their lives. And for the children, the seniors bring to them that time and attention. So when you see the two groups together, it's really quite magical.

My hope is that it makes a lifelong impact for them, that they will continue to see seniors as valuable people who have rich stories to tell. In the past year or so, we started a program with our alumni students. So that group of teenagers, they come back to the senior living building, they do a group called tech buddies. And the seniors come with their cell phones or their computers and ask the preschool alumni tech questions. What's the biggest life lesson a grandma or grandpa has given to a child? I think it gives the children an opportunity to be seen in a different way. And the seniors have this kind of radar that they pick up on that when there's a need in a child that maybe isn't being met. So I think that's an ongoing lesson that we don't always

see someone's full potential. And sometimes you have to be in a different context or see them in a different way to really get to know a person as a whole. There must be so many smiles on people's faces when the grandmas and grandpas are with the young children. What is the feeling in the room when they're all together? Gosh, it never gets old. It never, I hope I never become desensitized to the wonder of it. To see it in action, it brings people to tears. The feeling is just one of joy to see the seniors' faces light up when they see the children and to see the children rush over to their favorite seniors. We always greet them with a hug or a handshake. We teach the children to look the seniors in the eye and say hello. And to see that

happening, to see a child walking around a room, giving hugs to each senior, especially the folks like in memory care, who really, they don't get much loving touch and to see their faces light up when they see the children. It's really magical, it really is. And you can hear more about the preschool on their very own podcast called All Seasons, All Stories, which is created by Julie Strand. And thank you to our listener Megan, who emailed us about this story. A group of breastfeeding mothers have been called in to help another mother with her maternal behaviour. Mujer, the orangutan, struggled to give her first two babies the care they needed. A zoo in Ireland took matters into their own hands and let Mujer learn from the experts themselves.

Lizzie Reeves is a clinical midwife and a specialist in lactation at the National Maternity Hospital in Dublin. She helped arrange the experiment and has been speaking to Valerie Sanderson. Orangutans are known to mirror human behaviour. Majur had had two previous babies. She didn't show any maternal instinct. Both of the babies actually died. So it was really important that this baby survived.

So we knew we had to do everything possible to teach Majur how to look after this baby and to teach her how to breastfeed. So you actually used human mothers? We got human mothers in. So mothers obviously with small babies. The youngest baby who actually came into the zoo was a two week old baby, up to kind of 13, 14 month old babies. I work in a maternity hospital with a lot of young girls who have babies. So I contacted them, girls who are midwives, NICU nurses, doctors were all on board. They were really excited because they're teaching breastfeeding to the women in the hospital every

day. And then I contacted a local breastfeeding support group. And by that afternoon, I had 30 volunteers lined up to come into the zoo. They came in. We started kind of about three days a week. And then by the time the baby was due, there was women in every day demonstrating to Majore how to breastfeed. And Majore, the orangutan, was really interested. She was taking it all in. It was amazing. Orangutans share 97% of our DNA. They're really clever, really intelligent.

So we were really hopeful that she was learning from what she was seeing. They actually stripped off, didn't they, to show her exactly what to do. Yeah, many of them did. Because obviously orangutans don't wear T-shirts or bras. So if people wanted to, they took off their tops and their bras and sat there with Majora showing her exactly what she needed to do. The women were really amazing and they were so invested, like they would be texting when they weren't in the zoo asking, how was Majora today? Was she interested? How did she do? So, yeah, it was women supporting women at its best, regardless of species.

You obviously watched this. I mean, what did Majora do? So the first day that we went in, my friend Nora came in with her baby Elodie on the first day and Majeure came down to the glass and she gathered up some extra bedding and came down and was lying with her head in her hands watching Nora feeding Elodie. And I knew then that she was taking it in. Like she was really interested. She kind of moved herself around to get the best of you. And we were laughing. We were like, oh, my God, this is absolutely amazing, Nora. So Nora kind of turned herself for the best angle as well. And she was just like, as soon as the women came in each day,

she was down to see what they were doing. Did she also pick up other things the mothers were doing? Perhaps, you know, cooing at the babies, speaking to the babies. Yeah, she did. So when her own baby arrived,

she minded her baby so well. She carried the baby like me or you would carry a baby, you know, up on our shoulder. She was kissing it, cuddling it, smiling, cleaning it. It was absolutely unbelievable. She really knew how to mind it. And I think she definitely learned that from the women. She didn't get the position perfect for breastfeeding, but she did everything else perfect. And what happened to the baby? After a certain period of time, it was deemed that the baby was going to have to be hand reared because his genetic profile is so precious to the baby? After a certain period of time, it was deemed that the baby was going to have to be hand-reared because his genetic profile is so precious to the breeding programme.

And orangutans are critically endangered in the wild. The numbers are decreasing at an alarming rate. So the baby had to be removed and is being hand-reared at the moment in Dublin Zoo by an expert team of keepers. And Lizzie, do you think this kind of mimicking could be used for other species? Yeah, 100%. Apes like that, like the chances are that they think along the same lines as we do. So definitely for the great apes, this is definitely something that could be done in the future. The human mothers were so invested in it. I really think that, well, they all feel like they played a part in a really

important project. They were all really excited to tell their own babies when they're older about the project that they were involved in. But I think it was also really valuable for normalising breastfeeding. Anyone who's used public transport to get around London will be familiar with this somewhat confusing underground or tube map. Originally designed in 1933, it turned the tangle of train routes into a neat diagram of coloured criss-crossing lines. But now a new version has gone viral, as Owen T.J. Smith reports. For many people, it's not the awkward step off the train that makes it hard to get around London, but the awkward layout of the tube map.

The familiar linear map for the city's underground is based on a design by Henry Beck more than 90 years ago. Its purpose is to show people where the stations are in relation to each other rather than their actual geographical locations. But this can mean stations that are within a few minutes walk of each other seem really far apart. I've been speaking to a psychology lecturer at the University of Essex in England, who also happens to be a map collector and enthusiast. A TFL map doesn't simplify reality. It's not particularly coherent. It's not balanced.

And geographically, there's some really weird stuff happening on that. You look past the map and you think, hang on a minute, it's not just things moved around a little bit in relation to each other, there's things which are so crazy out of place. So Max Roberts designed his own version of the London tube map using a series of colour-coded circles rather than lines, and within 24 hours of posting it on social media, over a million people had seen it.

He told me he took inspiration from a map in the back of a Paris guidebook based on concentric ovals. But his main motivation was to illustrate how a map can teach us about the shape of a city, something that can't necessarily be done through modern GPS technology. As soon as you start relying on the computer, you don't learn about where everything is for yourself anymore. And the other problem with computer software is it's good at answering a question like,

I'm at A and I need to get to B, but it's terrible at answering a question like, I'm at A, I've got an hour to spare, and what can I do instead? So you get the map out and you think, oh, that's nearby. I could pop down to Waterloo and look at the South Bank for a bit or something like that. Maps are good for that. Transport for London say the original tube map is an iconic piece of world-renowned design

and that there are no plans to change it. So, at least for now, it seems navigating around London won't have you going around in circles. You may remember a few weeks ago we told you about a seagull that had been banned from a shop in the UK for a 10-year crime spree, stealing crisps or potato chips. Well, Jeremy from Sydney sent us this story. In the mid-90s, I lived and worked in remote outback Australia in a desert highway roadhouse at Kynuna, far western Queensland, population of 16 people. We had to add weights and a latch to the screen door in order to stop a family of broggers, also known as the Australian crane,

picture a four to five foot tall, red-faced grey bird. A mating pair had learnt and subsequently taught their young to use their size, weight and very long necks to push open the door, reach around and grab a pack of chips from the shelves, then run out past the petrol and diesel bowsers and pop open the packet and gorge out to their hearts and bellies content. They definitely showed a preference for salt and vinegar. As terrible as it is for all birds' digestive and overall health, hence the latch, it really was quite a remarkably impressive display of teamwork, learning and intelligence. Anne Roji from Sri Lanka told us about some of the many acts of kindness she's experienced from strangers while travelling, including Tavia, who helped her to get to Vienna when she missed her bus and took her out for coffee and cake. And she says all the help she's received inspired her to help a woman who looked lost

while visiting her hometown during a major cultural and religious festival earlier this month, taking her to a balcony to watch the parade and making her dinner. Coming up in this podcast... I can be too many there any time. I'm glad that we made it together.

My target is to collect gold for the country and make the Africa proud as well. The Nigerian couple making history at the Paralympics. If you're hearing this, you're probably already listening I'm going to go. Plus other great BBC podcasts from history to comedy to true crime, all ad-free. Simply subscribe to BBC Podcast Premium on Apple Podcasts or listen to Amazon Music with a Prime membership. Spend less time on ads and more time with BBC Podcasts. As a human rights lawyer and an ultra-marathon swimmer, you might think Eva Buzo had already achieved more than enough in her life. But she can now add becoming the first documented person to swim from Italy to Albania unassisted to her resume.

She completed the gruelling 92km swim in 35 hours and 17 minutes. But at the finish line, near the town of Vlorre, Eva couldn't even speak because her tongue, mouth and lips had swollen up in the salt water. The happy pods, Abiona Boja, caught up with her a day later to find out more about the momentous swim. The finish was nothing like what I expected it to be My swimming costume provider gave me a pair of red cozies for Albania And so in my mind it was always going to be me in the red swimming costume Walking up to the beach That's how it would be photographed And that's how it would be remembered But the swim finished in the absolute dead middle of the night. And my team was like,

the rock is just there. It's just there. But I couldn't see it. And I thought they were just getting me to swim into the darkness. And I said, like, are you mad? And then I kind of suddenly saw the rock was in reach. And I could hear people cheering in the background that had come in boats. There was just so much emotion. And I got onto the boat and I hugged my team and I just sort of fell asleep holding their hands absolutely the best moment was I knew that the people in Valora was supporting my swim and my mouth was really swollen after about 28 hours and so I did an Instagram live post and I said if anyone's watching this and has a boat or has access to a boat I really need some ice cream because my mouth is really swollen and it's really painful so if anyone could get

here with a delivery of ice cream you would be saving the day and sure enough 30 hours later three guys to the top of ice cream show up and they the day and sure enough 30 hours later three guys to the top of ice cream show up and they gave me delivery right in the middle of the ocean here is Eva swimming into her second night she's been swimming for more than 24 hours now but her stroke rate has picked up since the ice cream she is seems to be in a lot happier mood she's doing super well. So much to be proud of. Why did you choose to swim this particular stretch of water?

I know that you're of Albanian origin. Was that a factor in your decision making? Yeah, absolutely. You know, my grandfather was Albanian. He left Albania during communism and wasn't able to return ever. And so we didn't have much contact with Albanian family. So I really wanted to find a way to connect with my Albanian heritage in a way that is speaking my language, which is swimming.

I feel like it's understating it to say it's in my blood. I just feel more comfortable in the ocean than I do on land. I absolutely love it. I don't care how big the surf is. I always feel safe and comfortable. It's just if I could live under the sea, I probably would. I'm enjoying basking in the joy of everyone a little bit. You know, people are inviting me out for meals. My hotel got up to a really pleasant place. You know, I'm just enjoying the celebration side of it. So you've been getting a hero's welcome then by the locals?

Absolutely. I've just been invited out for the best steak and cocktail in Valora, which I'm so excited for because I've been on a very strict diet this year. I haven't had any alcohol since last November, so I'm just excited to have a cocktail. I think the ultra-endurance world is very much dominated by quite a masculine ideology around no pain, no gain, then push through it and ignore pain and all of that. I kind of started to try to

do away with that sort of heavy focus and heavy intensity and try to focus a lot more on comfort in the water, which meant communicating much more to my team about how I'm feeling. And just so that I'm getting a bit of empathy from the boat. And so, for example, towards the end of the swim, I was having hallucinations. And so I just said to my boat, I'm feeling scared. And they were able to just give me a bit of support. Well, night time is here.

We're in the darkness. Eva's just had her first feed. She's doing so well. She said she's really loving it. And she's loving the moonlight. What has the response been from the Albanian community, not just in Albania but around the world? The meaning that people have attributed to it has just blown me away

and I'm just so honoured that I could make a contribution in this way. And then also just the pride Albania is feeling, that the person to to do this swim first is of Albanian origin and I feel very overwhelmed that they've accepted me and I take pride in you know in what I've always felt is my Albanian identity I'm really really proud of it. Our next story comes from Devon in southwestern England. Dartmoor Zoo has welcomed a new leopard after posting an ad on a so-called dating site for animals. As Matthew Carter explains,

keepers at the zoo hope love will soon be in the air. Dating can be tricky at the best of times, but when there's only a few hundred of your kind left in the world, the pool can seem very, very small. That was the dilemma facing Freddo, an Amur leopard at Dartmoor Zoo. So he was placed on the Zoological Information Management System, a sort of matchmaking tool for captive animals around the world. He was soon paired up with Lena from Colchester Zoo.

Keepers are hoping that Freddo and Lena will be a perfect match and the zoo can begin a breeding programme. Now for a few of the other stories that have caught our eye this week. A six-year-old boy who went missing for five days in a forest in Vietnam was found safe and well. Dang Tien Lam, who's said to have wandered off while playing with his nine siblings, survived on leaves, wild fruits and stream water. He was found by local farmers about six kilometres from where he went missing.

Pictures online show people tending to Lam and offering him cake. Local police said it was a miracle he was found alive and congratulated him on returning safely to his family. A giant panda in Hong Kong has become the oldest on record to give birth for the first time. Ying Ying had twins, a girl and a boy, the day before her 19th birthday, the equivalent of 57 for a human. Officials at Ocean Park say the cubs are a true rarity, but are still very fragile, so the public won't be able to see them for a few months. Ying Ying and the twins' father, Li Li, have been together since 2007,

but only mated successfully in March this year. A German Navy ship visiting London has taken people by surprise by playing the Imperial March theme from the Star Wars trilogies. The ship in the city for training at a supply stop broadcast the music, otherwise known as the Darth Vader theme, as it travelled along the Thames. A spokesperson from the German Navy said the music had no deeper message and the commander could choose the music freely. To the upcoming Paralympics now, and the Nigerian athletes are set to make history as the first African couple to compete at the Games.

Although Kayode and Christiana Alabi will compete in different classes in Paris, they've been training together while facing life's challenges. As BBC Sport Africa's Emmanuel Akindubuwa reports, it's a love story which began seven years ago. No, nobody's here. This is how me and my husband practice every day. She's my mummy, she can listen to me any day, any time. Meet the table tennis couple hoping to be Paralympic champions.

I find joy doing this sport. Each time I'm playing, I don't have anything to worry about. She has really done a lot of things for me. I can beat him any day, any time. I'm Nigerian Paratable tennis champion. I'm Nigerian number one in my category. I'm also an African number one. Both Christiana and Kayode had polio as children.

I was not born like this. Maybe the time that I be five to six years so I discover whole new. It's not easy to be a fiscal challenge in this country. You do many things by yourself. Just for example, I'm coming to training. It's difficult for me to meet up with the transport when bus stop was

crowded and to be the last person to board a bus. My family, I don't think that they see me as someone that will become something in life. For me not to face stress, not to face abuse outside, but due to this boss, I'm not always shy the way I was shy before. I can speak publicly. Less than one percent of disabled people in Nigeria are employed and less than two percent have access to education. Table tennis has allowed Christiana and Kayode to have boats and to find each other. They met during a national camp in

2017 ahead of the Commonwealth Games. That's when he saw me so he came to me he started drawing attention but then I was not giving him much attention. Christiana moved to Lagos to be with Kayode and further her career. We got married in 2022, but before that, my family, they were not against the relationship. They liked the relationship and his own family too, but outsiders, they were seen as an abomination. They faced stigma because of being from different parts of Nigeria and both been disabled, but they are hoping to break barriers and pave the way for others.

We help each other. I qualified at the African Championship. I won my category, 5 women's single. And I was the first person to qualify before my husband. I'm glad that we made it together. It is the couple's first Paralympics. My expectation is to get to the top, bring honor to Nigeria, to my family, to my husband. So I really want to make him happy. I want to get to the top. My target is to collect gold for the country

and make the Africa proud as well. And that's all from The Happy Pod for now. We'd love to hear from you if you have any stories to share. The address is globalpodcast at bbc.co.uk. This edition was mixed by Abby Wiltshire and the producers were Holly Gibbs and Rachel Bulkeley. The editor is Karen Martin. I'm Bernadette Keogh. Until next time, goodbye.

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