Howling monkeys and paper mache turtles.

The office doesn't look like an neat office anymore ..or at least the part I occupy does not look like a neat office...the floor is covered with pieces of newspaper, the table, although covered with a sheet of plastic, got paint all over and the chairs are almost glued together....thanks to the huge amount of glue and paint we used in the past few weeks. On both bookcases and on the little sitetable there're paper mache animals in all shapes and sizes: some still dripping with glue, others dry and ready for a little bit of color. The children have worked well these last few weeks, and it resulted in a kind of paper mache animal farm/ zoo..we have got lions, falcons, peacocks, cats, dogs and some turtles. Less than a week to go and all has to be finished for the short presentation on the coming Monday..where the children will be explaining what they have made and why they chose that specific animal from the animal circle. I will then have to explain teachers and some parents about the workmethod and the results. The children who were assigned to me in the beginning were indicated as children with a behavior problem: disruptive, unfocused and aggressive. I never saw them aggressive and so can not tell if the became less aggressive..but I did notice the disruptive and unfocused behavior at start. In the weeks that I worked with these children I saw a slight change in these behavior aspects, but it is difficult to state if the art therapy made them become less disruptive and less unfocused or not. Other factors might have played a part as well....changes in the group, the time of day, the weather, home, school...all these things certainly had an influence as well in whether they were/are focused or not. But without cutting the influence of the artwork short I do think that , eventhough working in a chaotic little office with lots of noise, the tranquility and peacefullness they experienced while working with the art materials had it's influence on their behavior as well. Three of the most restless children I worked with these weeks are now able to work on their own for a short period of time, without jumping up every other second ,rushing off to interfere with work of others or hasty working on their own work in order to start a new one. They seem to be calmer now or at least become calmer when they're working with the art materials/working with me. If they are in fact more focused and less disruptive in class I yet have to find out. The teachers still need to fill in a questionnaire now..I will than compare the answers with the answers I received several weeks ago.
Anyway...one more workweek to go and then my time at the school La Victoria will be over. I had a good time here, although a lot of things went different than I thought they would be. But i guess that is part of the adventure. I will be leaving Costa Rica at the end of September/beginning of October....first visiting my sister Ruth in Nicaragua, then travel a bit more and maybe work some more somewhere else, either in Nicaragua or Costa Rica or somewhere else. I still have to decide on that...but will do so when the time comes.
Writing about the work makes it seems i did not have time to explore the beauty of Costa Rica, but I did see a fair bit of the beaches nearby and also went for another hike in NP El Rincon de la Vieja. Together with an American volunteer i walked up to the crater of El Rincon..a very steep but nice walk. We saw many many Spider monkeys, some Capuchins and several Howler monkeys...the latter howling like there's no tomorrow...quite impressive. I went to the beaches as well, to dive, as I mentioned in an earlier blog, as well as to surf..or better stated... to learn how to surf. This was great fun as well although I still need to learn how to fall off the board gracefully ;)
This is it for now...have to go and buy some more paint. I will post some pictures of the paper mache sculptures on the blog now, as well of some pictures that I took during El dia del Nino, almost two weeks ago. On this day, day of the child, many teachers came to school dressed like pirates, witches or as Aladin and so I dressed up to..in a too warm cat suit and mask...More pictures of the art work will follow when the children finish painting their animals. Okay, untill next time and keep in touch. Abrazos y besos desde Costa Rica, Rebecca