Summer 2007 Workshop, Friday July 27th

The Rural Haiti Project summer 2007 workshop Friday July 27, 2007

It’s six o’clock local time this morning. We are doing our routine preparation for the morning. Something different is about to happen today. We are having two guests today, Estone who is the chair maker and a nurse who will talk about health issues.
We have a lot of drawing sessions and presentations scheduled for today. The kids will be working late again.
I can’t wait to see the work that they will produce. I hope that it will be as fulfilling as last year and that the stress of working late will not take a toll on them. As I mentioned yesterday that the older kids took drawing material with them to work; they will be arriving with new drawings and we are planning a presentation for this morning for the work that they did yesterday afternoon and the new kids will attend and also will present their work as well.
It promises to be very exciting. This morning, and so will shall see.

The fruits of the day are ripping. The kids are producing some really great work and our special guest, Estone who is the local craftsman demonstrated and worked with the kids on how to make a chair with leaves from a plant called “liech” which is found in wetlands. One of the kids whose name is Billy Mombrun picks up the skills very well and fast to point that the other kids started calling him “Estone” and Estone himself said he would recruit Billy to work with him at his shop.
Before the arrival of Estone; all of the kids; the new group and the old were mixed together to make murals. Overall they did 9 murals.
We had a horticulturalist that came to teach the kids about grafting plants together. His demonstration was how one can have 8 different kinds of mangos from one tree. After his demonstration in the school with the kids he took us to an actual mango tree and did it on site. The graft must stay bound for 22 days before the top of it can be unbound.
The day was thrilling. We had the kids present their work and it was a blast. A lot of them are shy and they speak very slowly and low, but some of them had a lot great ideas and expressed themselves very well. For example there was one that painted a house in green and yellow with the Haitian flag on top of it. When we asked him why this was so and he said that he loves Brazilian football but Haiti is his country and could not but the Brazilian flag on that of the house. I finally connected with new kids today. They were so cute and adorable.
Tomorrow is the last day of the workshop and we are closing it by giving each kid a tree to plant and take care.
I am so overwhelm by the outcome of today that I do not really know where to start and how much to put down.

With all do respect, I will let the images do the talking for me.

Thank you all.