I have a Writing buddy. Not the kind of buddy who tears your writing into packing material, or proclaims your genius. No. This relationship has nothing at all to do with my writing, but everything to do with his.

Zo* is a ten-year-old South African boy. He is extremely curious – when he finds a topic that interests him, he wants to know all about it and asks me tons of questions. He makes up stories to go with the pictures in the books we read. When the Story turns out completely different, he doesn’t get discouraged, but instead seems to take it in stride as if thinking… ‘well, that was another way it could go’.

With all his ideas and stories in his head, I asked if he ever wrote them down. He said no, but he’d like to. And so we became Writing Buddies. Every week we write another page or two of a story idea Zo thought up – we talk about the story development, what should happen next and how we should illustrate it.

Last week, we were walking back to his classroom, talking about the pages we had just written – as we usually do. Zo said, “I like our story. I’ve wanted to write one for a long time, but didn’t have anyone to help me, but now I do.” I told him after we had finished this story, I thought he would be ready to write one on his own. Inside I was beaming, so happy that I was able help him explore his creativity and to share something with him that he had been eager to discover, something that has been so important to me – writing.

Of course he’s taught me things, too – lots of things like why I should follow Bafana Bafana (“cause they’re the best”), why reading English is important (“so you can read parking signs”) and how math is useful (“so you when you buy biscuits, know if the shopkeeper gives you the wrong change”). All useful things!

But the best thing Zo has taught me, the absolutely best thing I’ve learned in Africa is that success can come in the tiniest, most unsuspecting packages.

*Name has been changed for learner’s privacy.