Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Twofer

Hello for a two-day post. Tues. was a busy day - packed with events. Started out today feeling icky from the soup last night. My stomach really hated me. The weather was atrocious today - cold and monsooning all day, and by monsooning i mean monsooning! By the time we were done at placement, the parking lot had flooded about 4 inches, and water was covering the pathways in the school. I wonder what they do in the school when this kind of flooding occurs - do they let the kids walk through the water? The only problem we really saw in our wing was the power went out, leaving the room particularly dark for half of a session. The first group we saw was a good mix of vocal/non-vocal and different functioning levels. They were very fun though and incredibly creative! We got some great house pictures out of them, and a lot of them instinctually drew pictures of their families as well. As the rain poored down heavier and heavier, our second group came through and it was all boys, some returning students, some new ones. Although they were typical hyper-active boys, they managed to behave themselves pretty well and get a lot of work done. They conversed in English and Afrikaans, and one boy talked to me extensively about how Rands compare to the US Dollar and how many rand you would have to pay for things in the United States. I talked to some other NYU people about this and they said they had kids asking about money as well. It made me realize that when one is in a tight money situation, one tends to be hyper aware of how much everything costs.

After our sessions, we waded outside in about 4 inches of flooded rain waiting for the bus. At that point, parts of the school had flooded over and alternative routes had to be taken. We then went to the District Six museum, which is comprised of maps, signs, and pictures all from District Six before it was torn down by the government. It was amazing and depressing at the same time. It is almost like there was a perfect utopia that existed there since the 1700's that "had to be destroyed." People of all colors, creeds, and orientations lived together peacefully. I didn't get to spend as much time there as I would have wanted to, but it was nice to get to see it. Apparently the museum is too much for some people that used to live in 6 to handle.

After we got home from the District 6 museum, Paul and I had a meeting with Ikuko and Toshiko (our supervisors) to review artwork and talk about what we have been doing. We brought a bunch of the butterflies, pictures from the catterpillar, and a bunch of the home paintings and drawings. We all noticed similarities in how high functioning and low functioning children react to color and form. Those with low-functioning capability often had the best use of color and painted the most abstract pictures (I thought they were the most brilliant!). The next level were those who would draw with the paint to make a form (a house). More often than not, this house would not be painted in. The next level would be those who would draw with pencil the image, then paint into it. The last level would be those who would draw with paint and fill it in (we only had one of these). We also noticed similarities in how African children treated drawings of houses and people - flat roof versus triangle pointed roof, the addition of the "globe" as central light, the placement of windows on the edges of the house, and bars on the windows. As far as the people go, they generally speaking have a boxy construction, and the women have wavy pig-tail like hair.

At night, the NYU group went out to dinner at a Thai place, but I had plans already to go out with Len and Betsy, close friends of Pavel, so I went out with them to The Green Dolphin - a famous jazz club at the waterfront in Cape Town! We had a great time, good music, and great food! They are in Cape Town for a few days before going out into the bush down at Krueger National.


TUESDAY. So today was a little less hectic. Yesterday as we were leaving we noticed a raunchy smell coming from the bathroom and asked them to fix it. Because of the flooding, nobody was able to fix it yesterday, so we had them fix it today. Because of this, we had to miss our first session, but it was for a good reason - we could not work in an unsanitary environment. In preparation for the mural project tomorrow, we picked our final group members, who are subject to change based on who is in class tomorrow. We ended up only having one group, another group of just boys. Although two or three would fight back and forth, they got on pretty well and were able to make some good conversation. Part way through the session, two boys, who were making very interesting detailed images, were taken out because apparently they were supposed to be at the principal's office. One was working on a picture unlike any I had seen yet - it was an inside view of a house, depicting two coffee mugs, windows, a heart-shaped light and a door. What a loving a homely environment! After the boys completed their paintings of houses and otherwise (some were rather hard to determine), we decided to do a new exercise with the boys. Earlier in the day, we found some origami instructions and made what I called an "origami managerie." So, we decided to make a butterfly that flaps its wings with the boys - it is by far the easiest to make, and a good use of the extra butterfly papers that we had. We figured they could make the butterflies and then color them in. Although one or two boys had a little bit of difficulty, all were able to make butterflies, and some made multiples! They seemed to really enjoy having mastery over the origami and enjoyed decorating them afterwards. We let them take with them one butterfly so they could have something of their own (after all, in the past, everything they had made they left in the room!)

After lunch, we went to the site of the mural and painted the bits that weren't white white and made the final plans. We will see how it works out tomorrow - I have my hopes.
Here are a few images from the last few days:






1 comment:

Mom said...

One of your best entries yet! Great observations about the art work and the correlation between the students and their work. Glad you had a good time at the jazz club!
Sounds as if you are pulling the pieces together to complete your work. What a wonderful time you have had!
Looking forward to seeing you soon,
Mom