Dia 6 - Sexta-feira
Was woken up around 6am - usually manage to get up early but the mosquitoes were eating me alive. We need to be at the school for 8am but it’s raining. A lot. No wonder the people here don’t think about saving water. Managed to rope Lirca into giving us a lift into the school, a very bumpy ride.
The school is a one floor concrete building with 102 students from 4 to 16 years old. I think there are only 4 or 5 classrooms, but the school is split into morning and afternoon sessions, so I guess it works out somehow. Find the idea that you only go to school for 4 or 5 hours at a time is mind boggling if one is use to the Korean model of spending most day light hours within a classroom environment.
There were only 5 students who came to school today, was expecting around 15. Combination of the wet weather, and the 3 day holiday from Mon - Wed, which meant some just took the whole week off. That’s okay though, and think smaller groups are easier to work with. There were two girls, Isabella, Paola and three boys, Felipi, Patrick, Pedro who looked to be around 15 years old. Was warned that they don’t engage much, and thought Aline would have a hard time running the workshop, but they were very talkative. They had a distain for where they live now, and wished to be in bigger cities. Teenagers are pretty much the same the world over.
Started the workshop by drawing a map of the area, which happened as a group over several sheets of flipchart paper. Creating characters and thinking about the future over discussions around cause and effect brought up some interesting conversations. One of the most surprising things to come up was that the girls wanted a different future scenario after choosing pesticide accident, as they claimed it never happened and could never happen.
At times like this I always think back to when I was a teenager, and how unaware I was of the wider world. I’m sure I was a pretty horribly self-centred arrogant little snot, so I should cut them some slack.
Think the workshop went well. The kids gave us some really good local knowledge, bringing some interests and topics that will appeal to a wider audience. Good to know they also think current hose system is canos loucos. Added two more rooms after talking to them, which I think will really help with the story. The venda and campo. I also now have a team to support: Flamengo
The taps ran dry again, as couldn’t cope with heavy rains? Angelica crept up into the roof space to see what’s going on. Didn’t know there was a water tank up there.