This week´s scoop

From next month, we will in the Plaza 3 times a week: Mondays, Wednesdays (day on which we write up) and Thursdays! We are delighted to have been granted this authorization by the Quito Municipio as this means our work in the street will be taken up to 10 hours! Strengthened by the Mobile School we will be providing our kids (and new ones to become we trust!) with longer hours, new spaces and innovative tools for them to discover a world full of opportunities to express themselves, play, enjoy and learn!

Ways forward...

This week was very musical as we opted to make a little ¨retro¨ session on the right to choose and opt for the many paths that exist in life. Indeed through looking as we did over the past 4 months at the right to participate, be educated, be informed, stay healthy, eat well and be creative enabling our kids to understand the importance of fulfilling these rights, they also got little snapshots at the sort of activities and jobs one could do to ¨live these out¨. For example, we had a journalist from Fe y Alegría who informed us on how and where information could be found and how it could enrich you, a professional chef (not Ratatouille but Jerome!) that whipped up some healthy recipes from a simple cheap buy, Bernarda the singer who revealed to the kids that, with a little concentration, they could all emit harmonizing sounds! ;0 So basically, the kids discovered the world-full of opportunities that exist beyond their own reality, opening up doors not only to alternatives but also to their own creativity and imaginations- after a session where we sang songs to a melodious guitar, one of our kids decided she was going to pick up harp! (...go figure)

Despite the grey drizzly sky this week, the Cuéntamelo Todo crowd carried on as if nothing would perturb the planned musical session- we had actually decided to stay there whether it rained or not…as, despite the fact we had the go-ahead, making a racket in the Convent was perhaps not the most appropriate! ;0 During an informal ¨ tuning in¨ to the sound of a rather discordant keyboard and full-blasting mic, a couple of our kids (who have taken to wearing our jackets) went from participant to participant asking them to speak up their name. They would occasionally make some personalization to these…leading to a couple of group giggles and attracting quite a few curious passers-by.

Rob and Antonia from the Mobile School, the Belgium organization that is currently training our team (more info coming soon…this is a rather intensive but a very interesting time for our team!), were immediately enrolled in this session as we discovered last week that Antonia is a professional puppeteer, story teller and Cuatro venezuelano player (smaller version of guitar with 4 strings) and Rob, a discreet but very talented & versatile musician! So together with Christian, our pedagogue, they were to lead on a couple of instruments that our new puppet friend, Jacinto, straight from Venezuela, was going to introduce to us. Indeed, after a few warm up games linked to our topic of the day, namely that of choice, Jacinto told us about the various options he had elected to make his way to la Plaza San Francisco.

He explained how he had come from far away; a country called Venezuela, and had chosen to come by land rather than by air, over mountains rather than by sea, to finally come to the Plaza San Francisco rather than la Plaza Santo Domingo. This little session enabled the kids to smoothly understand the concept of choice…which was to be reinforced by the musical workshop we were going to have. Jacinto then went on to introduce each instrument and musician, who then struck a chord for the kids to recognize its sound. As we hopped from instrument to instrument, Christian asked what each instrument was called, there was a little confusion when we got to the keyboard and a majority, without previous consultation, said ¨a Casio¨…Christian smiled and got the kids to look at the bus passing the square asking them what the bus was called, ¨a bus¨ or ¨a Toyota¨? All the kids laughed, and concurred in calling the Casio a piano!

After a couple of exercises on comparisons which started with the logical step of observing, making oneself familiar with each instrument and then looking at what each was composed of, we listened, thanks to Christian and Henry´s orchestrating, to each instrument, decided whether they were melodious to us and then tried to recognize these eyes wide shut (!!).

Christian then invited them to choose the instrument of their choice and join the corresponding group. So as each little workshop welcomed its participants, the kids had the option to listen to a few melodies, sing along to a couple of tunes they all knew & had chosen together and when confident, could actually tap a few notes, strike a few chords and, as we can see from the photo, do some serious drumming! Most of the kids stuck to their initial group and actually got quite into it whilst a few glided from group to group to drop an ear to sounds they had perhaps neither heard before nor had a chance to listen to on its own.

Finally, the CEFISTAS gathered the kids on the Plaza to play and relax a little enabling Christian, Rob and Antonia to rehearse the song Cuéntamelo Todo´s crowd, kids and adults included, has a soft spot for: Color Esperanza. When they were ¨listo¨, all kids regrouped under the tent to sing along to their melodious tune before greeting goodbye with quite a few kids asking whether we would be back tomorrow- as the following day, was Thursday- the day of our Biblioteca Ambulante.