Making geography all fun and games

His world is bound by two square blocks — weed-choked pavement, teeming streets and a tiny studio apartment shared with his mother, stepfather and older brother.

Still, 11-year-old Oscar Mejia knows the thick forests of China, the grassy plains of South Africa and the fragile coral reefs of Australia.

Every Friday, Oscar and his class at Camino Nuevo Charter Academy leave their world — crowded apartments inside stuffy, narrow high-rises in Pico-Union, one of Los Angeles’ most congested neighborhoods — to explore new territories. They’ve voyaged across Mongolia, Beijing and Shanghai, Botswana, Malawi and Namibia. They’ve caressed an ostrich egg, dressed in tribal masks and gazed upon Chinese silk paintings — all without leaving their school playground.

“Next I really want to go to Barcelona and Honduras and England and also to France to see that big thing the people go there to see,” Oscar said. “You know, the tower thing.”

The adventures are part of an after-school program created by Just Like You. The nonprofit dispatches volunteers with giant globes and atlases to local schools, where they teach about world cultures to children who rarely set foot outside Los Angeles. After diving into new geographies and traditions, students play international games — variations on tag, football and kickball originating from such places as Zimbabwe and Iraq.

“They’re enraptured every time,” says Anne Marie Herwig, the program’s executive director. “They’re able to view the world in a different way — not just within the Los Angeles bubble, but as global citizens.”

The Minnesota native helped launch the program in 2009 with $3,000 in equipment from Nike and other private donors. She reached out to old college friends from Colombia, Chile and Europe to get ideas for games such as kho kho, dibeke and chicken in the den. Teachers from as far away as Australia and Ireland have praised the program.

It’s also become a hit at Camino Nuevo, where even the most rowdy kids behave throughout the week so as not to miss out on the weekly visit, said after-school program coordinator Peter Perez.

Most students are children of immigrants, in tune with the rich cultures of El Salvador, Mexico, Honduras and Guatemala. They dance cumbias, feast on menudo and tamales and celebrate quinceañeras. Some, like 9-year-old Yoendry Cortez, have traveled to their native countries.

“I fell on a big cactus and got needles stuck all over my back,” said Yoendry, vaguely recalling a trip his family took to Colombia when he was 4.

Oscar remembers once, when he was 6, boarding a Greyhound bus with his mother. After a few long days on an endless highway, they arrived in New Orleans to visit a friend. But the fifth-grader has almost no memories of the trip.

“Only shampoo,” he said. “I remember someone’s shampoo smelled good.”

Many of the students have never boarded a train or a ship, much less an airplane. They’ve yet to see even nearby spots: Pasadena, Santa Monica, Santa Barbara.

But on Fridays, third-, fourth- and fifth-graders huddle attentively around Herwig. They wiggle and giggle on the playground’s synthetic grass as she reaches for her giant atlas. When she whips open the book, the group instantly falls silent.

“Where should we go today?” she asks.

Hands shoot up in the air.

“South Africa!”

“India?”

“Oh, oh, I know! Australia!”

“Yes, that’s right,” Herwig says. “We’re going to Australia. Who can find it on the map for me?”

Half a dozen fingers land on a vast swath of land east of the Indian Ocean. This area (“a country and a continent,” Herwig tells them) is one they’ve been getting to know since early April.

They are learning about its deserts and coral reefs and kangaroos and sting rays and 1,500 kinds of spiders, including a fist-size species that devours birds.

“Seriously?” asks Yoendry, who bites his nails and wonders if these spiders hurt more than cacti needles.

Soon, it’s game time.

“Today we will play magic ray,” Herwig announces. “Australia has a lot of sunshine, so we will play to see who catches a ray of sunshine first.”

Laughter spreads as teams of a dozen children settle on opposite ends of the court. Whoever gets tagged is out of the game. At Herwig’s signal, they hurl themselves toward two cones at the center of the basketball court.

Oscar pants as he tries to dodge the tagger. He swerves and ducks and spins away from classmates, finally landing on safe ground.

“Ha!” he yells through two missing teeth.

Later, as he walks home alongside his brother, he tries to imagine introducing visitors to his world.

He points to the fruit man on South Bonnie Brae Street, the one who sings, “Mangos, bananas, piña!”

To the park, where pigeons soar over the glassy lake. And to the rows of peach and pink apartments on his block where he and many of his friends have lived all their lives.

“I think they would have a lot of fun here,” he says.

esmeralda.bermudez@latimes.com