Stuff

I don´t know why I´m up. I can´t sleep. I have developed a pattern of waking up at 11.30pm having only just got to sleep. I think it´s the middle of the night and then realise I´ve been asleep an hour or so! Absolutely ridiculous! So, tonight I tried to go to bed super early - I´ve been knackered all week and didn´t do enough catching up on the weekend and these last two days have been flipping between manic and moody in quick succession. So I decided I´d get an early bed. I´d been feeling decidedly dodgy all day but put it down to tiredness and therefore and over sensitive stomach. This evening, Karen came round to tell us she`s been offered a permanent job at Juconi - all very exciting news and obviously we wanted to hear all about it. We drank some cheap plonk and I went from feeling decidedly dodgy to feeling downright definitely dodgy. My stomach churning and my head banging and vice versa! I caught sight of myself in the mirror and I looked like a ghost! But yer, like I said, we wanted to hear the news and whilst the future of my host organisation here may look wobbly on the outside, where there are crises there often also opportunities for growth, evolution and massive progression from my point of view. And this seems to be what seems to be happening in this case. I can´t go into too much detail here as it´s an open blog, but put it this way, Sylvia and English woman who established Juconi 15 years back is over in Ecuador. She´s been here since Monday. My first impressions of her (are that she´s a powerhouse. When we spoke to Lynn (the Coordinator at CMAP in UK) the other day, she was shocked to here some of the organisational goings-ons here and said that when Sylvia got here she´d sort things out. I don´t doubt it. Sylvia is definitely a woman who can get things sorted. She seems to me to be a powerhouse of ideas, creativity and determination and this my assessment based on only 3 mini encounters with her for a couple of minutes each time. Maybe knowing about her and her very good reputation for getting things done is influencing my opinion, but whatever, it doesn´t really matter why I think she´ll get things done, as long as she does! So therefore, right now I´m excited about the future change that we might witness. I´m hugely excited for Karen who´s been given such an incredible opportunity although at present she´s still considering whether to go for it. But all credit to her- she´s been here six months as a volunteer and had no Spanish when she arrived. Wow, what an impact she has made on the team and some of the senior staff here to be offered such a great position. You go girl!

So.... what was I saying before my digression?! Me - digression/tangent - no, never! :P I don´t actually know but I feel pants. I feel sick but want to eat. I feel shattered but can´t sleep. I can´t believe it´s double day tomorrow - i.e. Art Club session in the morning and then another in the afternoon. Ahhhh! However, to update on Art Project as I´m sure it´s more interesting to you guys that hearing about my tummy woes, it´s all going good thank you! This week we´ve started Christmas cards - stupidly early I know! What it is, is that many of the kids in the sector have specific donantes, i.e. donors/sponsors, and we therefore have the kids make a Christmas card which can be sent to the donante. As many of them are overseas, predominantly in England as that´s where Sylvia has established so many links and created many funding opportunities, they obviously need to be sent quite early. However, as Sylvia´s over at the moment and leaves in a week and a half, she´s actually going to take them back over with here. So the long and the short, is that we´ve started doing Christmas cards with the kids using coloured photocopies of old Christmas cards, paint and potato stamper shapes (which went a bit dodgy but we tried in Fertisa on Monday arvo and then abandoned that - nice idea, shame it didn´t work out!!), showing them how to use basic geometric shapes to make Christmas pictures - 3 triangles is a Christmas tree, 2 triangles a star - you get the picture.

So, Fertisa was good on Monday although the potato stampers didn´t work out so the kids got frustrated, but that group´s our trial session for the week to see if our plan works out and then if nec, we regroup and change our minds on Tuesday when planning for the rest of the week - exactly what we did this week! However, today´s session in Balerio Estacio was INCREDIBLE! We had the normal antics about actually trying to get to the sector and on time and only arrived at half 2, 30 mins late (and one of the rules of Art Club is that the kids arrive on time - hummm!) - I am rapidly beginning to see that this is normal in Ecuador. 30 minutes late is on time! However, when we did finally get there we came bearing gifts. We had a whole extra table and some chairs - whoop whoop! Last week it was only 3 tables and no chairs trying to accommodate 27 kids so some still had to work on the floor and the rest were doing 'standing up table work'! But today was an incredible success. With the combo of us arriving late and the tables and chairs all laid out in the building, this amazing artistic working environment seem to have magically created itself. We were still running about setting stuff up, trying to find this and that, when I remember just suddenly noticing that loads of kids had now turned up and they were all sitting patiently on their random assortment of odd chairs waiting to begin. So, obviously we took massive advantage of this situation. As it was already half past we got moving.

One of the things we´ve been looking at is trying to encourage the children´s creativity. We´d been told before we´d started that many of the kids in the sector struggle to create their own stuff independently, often wanting to copy others or something we´ve done. Or alternatively, wanting us to draw something for them, or cut it or whatever. It´s always a bit of a delicate balancing act trying to facilitate them enough that they can get on with something without totally taking over and doing it for them, thus stultifying their creativity and not doing much to enhance their personal confidence.

Therefore, as I´ve done loads of graffiti walls with groups in the past and found them a fab way of eliciting thoughts, pictures, emotions and feedback/evaluation, I suggested to Helen that we try and do this at the beginning of the session in order to try and stimulate the kids´creativity a bit before we got to work on the Christmas cards themselves. We´d done it in Fertisa and despite some kids being stumped for a while, eventually when we started saying "If I say Navidad (Christmas), what pops into your head, what images do you have/what words etc" (many are scared to get it ´wrong´ so we have to keep explaining there´s no wrong and right and their artwork doesn´t have to be perfect) ... and eventually most of them got moving and we had an array of different coloured post-it notes with pictures, words and ideas with which to build our mini graffiti wall.

So, getting back on track, we started the session with the Balerio kids and some were totally stumped for a while but the majority did produce at least one post it note and I reckon that the more we keep doing activities like this, the more accustomed all of the groups will get to thinking creatively on the spot and the more confidence that will give them. Just like with some groups, where we have a bit of spare time, e.g. normally Fertisa, we´re trying to encourage a mini session of retroalimentación (feedback) from the groups at the end. What did they like about the session, what didn´t they like. Not only is it about encouraging creative thinking, but it´s about giving them a chance to formulate and express their own opinions in a safe space where we want to listen, thereby hopefully helping them to take ownership of Club de Arte more as well. At the moment, both the graffiti 'ideas' walls and the feedback bits of the session can be slightly slow to gain momentum but I reckon if we stick at it, in six (well five now) months we´ll have a bunch of kids that are confident to express their ideas and thoughts when asked. I believe that´ll be hugely important for them and their futures. I really do hope so.

And the main part of the session was of course, the Christmas cards themselves. What was so fabulous about Balerio´s session today was how involved the kids were with their work. There was much less generally faff and scrapping (except the two tables I was working more with - both tables of only girls - surprisingly NOT!!) and how smooth the session was overall. There were times when I actually found myself at almost a loose end! Compare this to normal group sessions when I feel like I really don´t have enough pairs of hands, ears, or enough mouths to talk or brains to think with and cannot begin to respond to the constant pleas of "señorita, señorita, ayudame..." (Miss, Miss, help me...)! At one point, I actually turned to Veronica, our Juconi Educator for the session and was like "hay silencio" (there´s silence) - and we both looked at each other in amazement! It was absolutely fantastic to see and despite some mini tantrums at the end when we had to deprive the kids of the paint in order to let the cards dry, they seemed happy enough knowing that when we next have Art Club, after a two week break, they can continue to work on their cards and make new ones.

Wow, if Thursday´s sessions go anything like that one I will be one happy bunny Art Club woman! Tomorrow morning is our 'under the tree group' - Sergio Toral, where we literally do do Art Club under a tree as there is no other space accessible to us anywhere and these kids are on the farthest farthest extremes of the Guayaquileño slums so they are probably about the most needy, most lacking in facilities etc and it takes us hours to get there which includes lots of walking up hills with all our Art Club materials - fun (will only get more fun in the rainy season me thinks :0!. It´s also the group that is struggling the most with the transition, i.e. with us - Helen and I, not being Andy and Lone - the couple who were running Art Club until August. Andy and Lone established Art Club in Sergio and now we having to manage some powerful pushing of boundaries and disruptive and complaining behaviour from a couple of the group members, outside who´s house the Art Club tree stands. So, despite it being our smallest group, what with the lack of a designated physical space or physical boundaries and with the challenging behaviour of some of the family, it is actually probably the most hardcore of all the groups to be honest. I know that they´ll get used to us and we´ll get used to them but at present they run to the Educator (who does visits whilst we´re running Art Club) as soon as he returns and go "they did this, they did that etc. etc. Andy and Lone never did this or that. We want Andy and Lone etc!" So whilst I recognise it´s just kids being kids, and especially the oldest boy in the family starting to act up as he´s on the verge of adolescence, has no male role model at all and his Mum is always working, it can be quite a dispiriting group sometimes. Ah well, we´ll see what tomorrow brings. Ultimately, we actually need to be more fixed and firm there than in all of the other groups as we have no physical walls or boundaries in which to manage the session. We´ll get there I have no doubt.

So, my final bit of news is that next week is FERRIADA! WHOOOPEY Whooop! Which means it´s a National holiday to celebrate... I can´t quite remember what. It is officially our 1 month anniversary today - our arranged marriage and the anniversary of our arrival. We´ve been here ONE WHOLE MONTH - kwwwazey! As Karen earlier, actually in one month we´ve achieved a hell of a lot - we´ve got a whole two weeks of Art Club under our belts and we´ve been well integrated into the staff team as a result of the fact that unlike previous volunteers we´ve been able to communicate straight off in Spanish. That feels good to hear. Thanks Karen- it´s good to have someone´s external´s perspective, especially as, as you guys will know, I can tend to be quite self critical, seeing what´s gone wrong rather than right and finding a bit of a stick to beat myself with. We´re doing fine, great, well and we´ve got some fab ideas that we´re keen to try out.

So, back to Ferriada time - we´re escaping Guayaquil part 2 - after the mud bathes and the $4 Aloe Vera massage on Saturday in San Vincente, our plan this holiday (- it´s 5 FULL days - we´re not back in work until next Thursday!), is to escape to the beach. Either up the coast to Canoa up North or down South and into PERU to Mancora which is famous for it´s all year round sunshine. I´m hoping on the Peru option myself as although it´ll be overrun by everyone as it´s a holiday period, they´ll be people and Helen and I can relax a bit, get some sunshine and chat to other people except each other. Canoa on the other hand will be quieter which could be nice, but the weather on the Ecuadorian coast is a bit dodgy at this time of year as it´s not guaranteed hot and sunny until December time. -right now, it´s more likely to be drizzly, grey and actually a bit cold from what I hear. A bit like today was in Guayaquil. I mean it was still like mid 20s but it definitely felt cold by Guayaquil standards (except in Balerio of course, where I still had sweat draining from my forehead into my eyes - fun!).

I say Mancora.... bring it on!! Party Party!

Got to sleep NOW













, however, after drinking some wine as K