Thursday, April 2, 2009
What a wonderful time this was! I had so much fun just watching the children, their caregivers, and my translator (the big kid on the corner of the first table) sit down and have fun with the Crayola paints.
I was afraid the children may not know what to do with the paints or even have ideas in their head of what to paint. Was I surprised! Once they learned how to bring the colors to life they jumped right in and began to create beautiful pictures.
Boys are boys everywhere - they all love their machines. Machines are trucks in Haiti. What little boy anywhere in the world isn't fascinated by dump trucks, buses, jeeps and cars.
There were definitely some artists in the group. A few got out pencils and drew designs that they then painted. There were suns, tap-taps, people, and machines. I brought the artwork home so we could display them when we make presentations to anyone who will listen to our experiences in Haiti.
Needless to say that anytime you have small containers of water around children at least one has to end up all over the table or on the floor. After the first two containers were dumped over the caregivers smiled at me and removed the canvas-like table covers and let the boys have fun.
The only instruction the boys needed was how to get the brush wet in the water and work the water into the paint cups. From there they proceeded to amaze me. I would love to be able to frame the pictures and return them to the orphanage one day to be hung on their walls.
My translator, Babout, was getting calls that the others had returned from Ile A Vache and dinner was ready. He was having so much fun with the boys that he had a hard time leaving. I didn't push him to leave because I felt like we had just gotten started so I began taking pictures of the boys with their artwork. They were so proud and laughed when they saw the image of themselves in the camera. I wish I could be with them now and bring them more art projects they could work on. There's so much that they've not been exposed to, so much they would enjoy.
