Adios Mexico!

Anna & I were both sad to say goodbye to Puebla and Mexico. We had an amazing experience in such a short space of time.
We will miss the lovely friends we made, the children, the tacos, the quesadillas, the mole and most of the the macarones (Pueblano Fudge)!

Salsa

The one thing Anna and I are finding harder than Spanish out here is dancing! Here they don't do the simple nod of the head, two step, or jumping up and down like we do in the UK....they have Salsa, Merenge, Bachata, Banda, Cumbia just to name a few. So we thought we'd give it a try and attended dance classes twice a week.
We found it somewhat difficult being taller than the majority of men in the class, Thank goodness our instructer was one who was tall. This lead to a few accidents for Anna (who is 2" taller than me) including slashing a guy across the neck with her nail and elbowing another in the eye. Poor Anna was mortified but the guys took it on the chin! Literally!

Lovely words

We wanted to share with you some of the feedback from the children and staff.

"Participating in this project has given the boys more ideas, ways of thinking creatively and working with different types of art" - Bibiana (Casa Juconi Educator)

"One boy seems more extrovert now. Before his attitude was always 'I can't do it', now he has more aspirations" - Carla (TRACA Educator)

" Even though the children have spent their whole lives in the market they are beginning to see it differently. One child told me how much rubbish they had noticed on the floor." - Paola (Centro Juconi Educator)

"I liked working with my brother"
" The new games the teachers taught us were fun"
" I learnt to share and not fight with my class mates"
" I like taking photos."
"I had fun learning new things"
-Various children who participated in the project

Lucha Libre

Lucha Libre is AMAZING!!!!!!! Big Beefy men, wearing sparkling masks and tight leggings, throwing each other around. What more could you ask for?! You have the Tecnicas (the goodies) & the Rudos (the baddies). Of course, the goodies always win. People of all ages go to the matches from 1 yr olds to 80 yrs ! We have become die-hard fans and went three times...need I say more!

Exhibition

At the end of the 5 weeks we held an exhibtion of all the childrens' work in a public space 'Casa de Jovenes'. The exhibition ran over 3 days (Friday - Sunday). Around 150 people came along to the opening on Friday evening, including all the children in their best clothes and hair combed nicely. They had never seen their work displayed in public before. The younger ones were very excited, the older boys were nervous at first but then when hearing all the positive comments about their work felt more confident and proud. Many of the Juconi staff attended and made an effort to congratulate us and the children on how good the work was.
All the children waited with eager eyes as we handed out Art Club Diplomas to those who participated.

Comic Strip

For this project the 9 boys at Casa Juconi each made a comic strip based on an imagined or real story about themselves. We did lots of different activities leading up to this including drawing games, drawing techniques, a printing workshop, the photography workshop and making flick books.
Each boy created an A2 size comic-style storyboard using planned and posed photos of themselves and a variety of techniques for the backgrounds. Stories included themselves in the future for example as firemen, stories of their normal day, being super heroes and a dream sequence.
We are really pleased and proud of the final work the boys produced. They worked very well as a group and as individuals. Their imaginations never ceased to amaze us.

'Mercado'

This is the second project we ran with our larger group at Centro Juconi. Because the children spend a lot of their time at the market with their families, we thought it would be a nice idea for them to take a look around and re-create a miniature replica.
We first took them on a visit to the market for an hour drawing session. We split into groups to walk around and draw all the different stalls and objects that we found. Each group had a different colour and had to find & draw things that matched. The children loved this task, and were keen to find as many things as possible.
Together we made a giant floor map of the market on which the children drew the different things they had seen in the market. Then using recycled packaging they made market stalls and using plasticine made vendors and goods to sell. We were amazed by the ability and concentration of the children who were always sat waiting and ready when we arrived and created things we would have had difficulty with! The final market looked fantastic!

Present & Future

The children in our TRACA group were a pleasure to work with and created a wonderful final body of work. The project Present & Future involved the children creating one scene from their present and one for their future. By painting backgrounds and making accessories using recycled packaging and dressing up, they posed for each scene and took photos for one another.