¡Acción!

Last week, the Mobile School took a whole new dimension for the kids as they were invited to queue up the stairs leading to the Convento to be carried through and over its little theater opening…This was clearly a lot of fun for the less adventurous to watch and had a lot to do with trust and courage for those who managed to overcome their fears and crawl over the Mobile School´s ¨rooftop¨ to be recuperated on the other end by one of our team members!

After this new interaction with the Mobile School which had up until now essentially been an instrument of ¨learning from¨ its boards (the risk now, as some revealed this week, is that they decide to leap over it without notice, so we will be keeping it´s parking afar from stairs! ;0), the kids were invited to paint their faces in front of the mirror we had posted on it.

This is not the first time we do this kind of activity with the kids, and thankfully we have learnt from experience, so rather than having paint pots just at hand, our team was strategically positioned with the little pots in their hands to accompany the kids in their facial artwork. Last time did indeed turn into smudged faces, painted hands and dirty T-shirts (check out Play Time) with us having to do some serious facial scrubbing to avoid parental wrath. This time however, as you can see, was clean swift artistic expression that did not require any cleaning before departing especially as the kids were rather proud of their respective facial works! ;0

Once all were painted up to their taste, Henri and Santi, our leading Cefistas, invited the kids to settle down under our tent, with the Mobile School and its town centre boards as back drop. The theme of the day, after the previous week´s painting session with Miguel (Painting Thoughts), was to look at a new medium of expression: theatre and representation, with the facial artwork exercise illustrating it. So, after learning the works and uses of its jargon such as ¨corte¨ (¨cut¨), ¨luz¨ (¨lights¨) and ¨acción¨ (action), the kids turned into informed directors and invited the cefistas to perform for them. The first act was about a young boy wanting to buy ice cream but unfortunately never quite being quite able to express it properly so we return to his friend for a little help on how to say it with each time a new complication: clear communication and solidarity themes explored here. The kids giggled away, and at the end, clapped hands unanimously inviting the crew back with a few ¨otra otra otra¨! The Cefistas then proceeded in another little representation where Santi kept on waking to the same day in the Plaza (along the likes of Groundhog Day) going slowly bananas…the session however eventually drew to a close as we wrapped up, slightly late, but all content and sane!

The rest of the encuentros over these 2 weeks have been quite relaxed and seen quite a generous flow of children, who come, drop off their bags, play a few games with and around the school, and take off again. We are observing a new wave of recurring children who are reinforcing our ¨fixed¨ group and expanding Cuéntamelo Todo´s family, which is great news! As this week´s Monday 24 May was Bank Holiday celebrating the Battle of Pichincha which brought about Ecuador´s independence from Spain in 1822, we chose not to take to the Plaza: all kids were off school and their parents in general not working and perhaps even enjoying the national parades around town.

Our Mobile Library remains as eventful as ever despite the fact quite a few of our kids are too small to read, they just adore sitting around flicking through the images, drawing them and being read stories. Further to our Taking Stock… blog entry a couple of weeks ago, we are doing quite well in tracing the books that had gone astray; we may not exactly be ¨recuperating¨ these but we are finding out things like: ¨well, my little sister tore it to shreds¨, or ¨I haven´t lost it, I just lent it to my school library¨… a good learning curve for us in the face of such honesty! So, once trust has been reestablished through this communication update on the disappeared book status, settlement has been reached that lending will be re-initiated with a commitment by the loaner that a little more care & attention will be paid to the book as otherwise, at this rate, the Mobile Library will be left without anything to lend: a loss-loss situation for all!

Last week, after a few administrative twists, we finally managed to start the dentist checks and simultaneously, we have chosen to start distributing our Cuéntamelo Todo key chains (Taking Stock...). We will be introducing these to our kids in the next couple of weeks through practical games, i.e.: I have trouble at school and think I may need to some support classes, where do I go; or, I am feeling unwell, which medical centre I am closest to, etc.

Next week, the celebration of the ¨Mes del Niño¨ (¨Children´s Month¨) will kick off with the International Children´s Day on Tuesday 1st June. On this occasion, DS&H, along with other partner organizations part of the Red de Niñez Callejizada in Quito, an initiative launched by the Metropolitan Council for the Protection of Children and Adolescents (COMPINA), will be exceptionally setting up tent on the Plaza San Francisco all morning.

We will be present with the Mobile School ready to connect with the local schools that have been invited by the local authorities to visit the Plaza and connect with organizations & initiatives like ours that work towards restoring children´s rights. We will also be inviting our kids to the Tianguez café for a little afternoon show with Juan Fernando, a young clown we met recommended to them. So on we go with June´s festivities, a month that also announces in Ecuador´s northern hemisphere, summer holidays…