Weeks 8 and 9

I can't believe I only have a few more weeks here... it has flown by.
It is sad each day knowing as I grow closer and closer to the children that I am leaving so soon. I am still amazed at how we carry on conversations and lessons for hours with very little words in English/Sinhala, but MANY hand gestures and pictures. Perhaps it is our lack of words that makes the smiles and eye contact so meaningful.
I am so busy in the work right now, I am forgetting to take photos.
Dulmina keeps excelling in English and is OBSESSED with playing learning games on the PBS kids website. He doesn't even need me to show him what to do, he can read and understand the directions for himself.
The class had a fantanstic field trip to a park. It was fascinating to see them interacting with other children on the playground. It was also wonderful to spend the morning with their mothers and get to make that connection as well.

Dulmina climbing up the slide

Savindi loves to slide with the help of her mom

Dulmina wants a flower so bad

Hacita climbs

Channa romps around

Hacita and his Mom use the seesaw

Hassal waves to his mom from the structure

Our best attempt at a group photo. This was quite the process. I wish you all could see the multiple series of photos I have, as the Moms tried so hard to get all the kids together in one place, all looking at the camera at the same time. In this one, the tall boy, Chaminda is blocking Savindi, having a tantrum in the back. In our efforts to make this photo happen, every child had a meltdown at least once.

I am trying to push reading books to the children in the classrooms. The school has a wonderful library, but it is not utilized as much as it could be. I attempted to talk with some of the teachers/administration about this, but they were unsure of how successful it would be. I am now taking a - lead by example aproach, and I read a book to start a lesson. I try to translate what I can, but the pictures are what carry the stories well. The students stay very actively engaged of course. After a book, we draw our own characters from the stories making class picture books. I am really hoping this will catch on. One of the teachers noticed this was going well and took some photos for me.

Holding class in the library to encourage it's use. We read a book "Sea Friends." In Sinhala - Maahlua Yaaluah, which actually translates to fish friend, but I loved the rhyme.

After we finsihed drawing, we watched clips of Finding Nemo from Youtube on the netbook (thanks to Eliza and Brian for letting me bring your technology to Sri Lanka! And thank you, Ranil, for helping us get the Dialog broadband!)

My work in Sambodhi home is going amazingly well. My art groups are growing in number everyday. Today we didn't even have enough seats for everyone, people had to sit on the floor, out on the porch or in the other room. They did so happily because they are so thrilled to be making art. Art - Kalaahwah, Together- Ekahtahekvah, One- Ekah, Family - Davulah.
Here are some examples of groups from last week:

Our art group theme on this day was to draw and pass your pitcure for another to add to it. Goal- to help encourage cooperation and collaboration. This group became intense when Roshan began to cover the drawings completely on his turn.

I have worked with Roshan long enough now to know that this drawing is of the tsunami. Roshan typically draws flowers or the tsunami. The tsunami drawings are usually one or two dark colors filling the enitre page. He does at least one tsumani drawing a week. His affect is quite different for the tsumani drawings when compared with the flower drawings.
In this group, when he turned the other residents' drawings into tsunami pictures, they began to talk to eatchother about the tsunami (how valuable for me it would have been to have a translator!). Lili, being the wonderful woman she is, spent a long time trying to tell me her experience. She also drew her own tsunami picture.

                                Lili tells me her experience of the Tsumani while a group member photos.

Lili's Tsunami also fills the page, she chose a blue pastel and a blue piece of paper, to represent the water ("watura" she explained).
A side note on the Tsunami's recent impact on these people - we had planned to take the residents to the beach next week, but because of the tragedy of Japan's recent Tsunami, the managers of the home are too afraid to have the residents be near the water at this time.

Another group success:
I finally collected enough magazines to do a magazine photo collage group. I tryed to include as many magazines of Sri Lanka as I could find so that pictures would be relevant to the residents' experiences. World travel magazines were also used. This was also a very interesting group. Quite a few of the residents repeatedly chose images of families together. Images of the Buddah and animals were also often collected. The residents LOVE this type of collage, we haven't stopped doing it since we started. They have asked for the photos, scissors (kutura) and glue (gum) everyday. They spend so much time flipping through the pages of the magazines and marveling at the images.

I want to add more photos but the internet is giving me trouble... I will try again tomorrow!