Club de Arte has started in earnest!

So today was the big day – Club de Arte has started... whoop whoop!

We went down to Fertisa this afternoon and after a brief warm up with one of the Juconi workers, we got started. We decided that since Club de Arte hadn’t been running for a couple of months and the kids don’t know us that it’d be a good idea to re-establish the ground rules for the sessions. After a brief discussion about why rules were a good idea, we got them to think up what they thought would work and then Helen and I introduced our Compromiso to them – our commitment to arrive on time, bring materials, listen to opinions, respect everyone etc. We’d spent the morning designing our Commitment sheet in Blue Peter “here’s one I made earlier” style so that they knew what we were trying to encourage them to do. Then equipped with bags of colouring pens, scissors, glue, magazines and newspapers; they set to work writing each of the rules, or oraciones – sentences, on strips of paper to stick up, thus giving us a sheet of rules for the club. Once finished, the group started to draw round their hands and sign to show their agreement to the rules.

The session flew by but this was also due to the fact that because we don’t know that sector yet, Juconi wanted to ensure we got a lift out to Fertisa in the Camion and we could only get Alexis, the driver, to come for us at 3.30pm. Also late arrivals meant that the actual art part of the session was shortened and also severely tested my Spanish as I had to keep explaining what we were trying to do in the session to the newbies!

It was quite a small group – only 10 by the end but we know full well that word will get around soon that Art Club is back on and we’ll be back up to the full 25 quota! We also had Karen there but even with 4 workers and only 10 kids it definitely felt quite full on..... God, what will it be like when we’re up to full numbers and have less staff?!?! Humm!

Anyway, it was all good.... a few issues, like one girl who refuses to share anything and refuses to do anything with anyone else, one guy who’s a bit disruptive and a really tiny beautiful little boy who kept playing with the scissors...on his FACE! And not surprisingly, towards the end of the session he told me that “me duele mi nariz” – i.e. he’d hurt his nose. Once I discovered that he’d continued to play with the scissors and had cut himself we made a deal that he was not allowed to use the scissors near his face – and ah what a beautiful little face it is! We slapped palms and touched fists in acuerdo – in agreement, I mean this little kid must be 5 and he’s touching fists – hilarious, and gorgeously sweet! But I suppose the main challenge is confidence building with the whole group, an issue we’d been told about in advance; if they muck up a letter they want to start the entire sentence over again and many of them are not able to read or write independently and are scared of getting laughed at by the others in the group. So, there’s lots of work to do. But it’s definitely a fabulous challenge and I’m pleased to have finally (finally?!) got started!

I say finally, but it’s absolutely mind blowing to me that we’ve only been here two weeks. My house, my living arrangements, my city, the climate, the language, the culture, the people, the food and my work has changed in an instant! It’s hard to fathom that it’s only been two weeks in real time when for me, my whole world’s changed. And on that note I’m signing out ready for four more Club de Arte sessions during the rest of the week.

Muchos besos a todos – lots of kisses to all... xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx