Art in Haruma

Kenya lesson #1: Plans are always written in pencil.

Wednesday and Thursday meant art classes with the students of the New Dawn school in Haruma, a slum outside of Nairobi. It also meant trying to do without the materials you thought you were going to have.

The first day I did not have enough glue or scissors because the main supply of these was in the crate checked to Deb and had been taken off the plane and had not arrived before we left for Haruma. Our project for this day was to create two Christmas ornaments, both of which required cutting. We had 37 students crammed into one of their older classrooms and a total of 9 scissors and six bottles of glue...you do the math.

My fellow teachers out there will clearly recognize this scenario as a potential recipe for classroom management disaster...but these students were so patient and cooperative as we shared and waited for scissors to be passed around. It did feel a little chaotic at times but I also had lots of assistance from teammates who helped shuffle scissors and other supplies from one side of the room to the other.

They were all very proud of their work as you can see:


The second day posed an even more challenging take on Lesson #1 (see above). I arrived at the school, but my ENTIRE crate of supplies did not. All I had with me personally was a supply of sharpies and our task for the day was to produce Christmas card art that we will reproduce back home and sell for them. So while a van went back to fetch my crate (an hour round trip at least) and while the students were finishing devotions I was quickly praying for inspiration for plans x, y, z.

Fortunately the school produced some paper for me, so with the sharpies in hand, we at least had that going for us. After explaining to another group of 37 students we would be making Christmas cards LATER when the crate showed up, I launched into a discussion about what Christmas means to them, what they already knew about the Christmas story, etc. I then got the bright idea to READ the Christmas story, so my teammate Erin Kress went to find a Bible for me. As I read from Luke 2 we made a list of the different elements and characters that we would be using LATER in our designs when the crate showed up.

I then taught the whole line family art lesson using the sharpies and paper and we practiced our skills and the different elements we would be drawing and painting LATER when the crate showed up. I also showed them my Miro power point on my ipad, which fortunately I did have with me and we drew constellation designs in the style of Miro to practice stars which we would be drawing LATER when the crate showed up. I also had power points of simple Christmas art to help build inspiration for LATER when the crate showed up.

This went on for TWO hours! I kept looking out the window to see if the van was pulling up. Finally the crate did in fact show up. We produced Christmas card art using crayon resist designs and sharpie and water color designs. In all a THREE hour lesson! That has to be some kind of record somewhere. It was at least a record for me talking that long.