Children and their world
, a global project

October 4, 2007

The last few days are indescribable. The children are beautiful. I started to get so upset yesterday and then I walked into a side room, stared at a wall, and told myself my tears would do nothing to help these children. There is no room for pity in front of them as they watch every step we take. Some are terrified of us. Most are mystified, as we are with them... as well as permanently in love with them all with their huge inquisitive eyes and contagious smiles. As they scribble away, all on the floor jam packed, working and giggling away, the children (and this is the case in every location we've been to) hand off their artwork almost like a ritual, searching for a reaction, approval, a smile. I was worried the kids would want to keep their pictures, but not one! Each child passes them off and scrambles to scratch another drawing together, just to come back up and hand me another one... I literally barely have time to react from one before the line has built up... the children are gorgeous, gorgeous, gorgeous!

There is so much wrong with the community (waters not clean, food scarce) and there were moments at the beginning where I thought we were fools to show up with nothing more than pencils when SO much more needs to happen... but when the rhythm of the pencils begins and the children are scribbling away madly, only taking a break to look at what we're doing while they scribble... and giggles erupt from children whose faces looked so forlorn, holding a sadness behind their eyes that no child should have, I think for one breath second that colored pencils hold a lot of possibility. Once the colored pencils have been dumped out of their boxes, the room becomes a flurry of color and imagination ricocheting between the small walls.

One day we arrived at a creche to find the door locked. We had already gathered children from the streets to follow us, so we sat the group down on the ground and got to work. What an amazing group of children! And word spread fast, children kept coming running down the road from every which way to join in the drawing merriment. The woman running the creche was explaining the project to another woman, speaking half in English, half in Afrikaans. The phrase a 'celebration of the human spirit' came out amongst many words I did not understand... I couldn't help but think yes indeed, it is, as I watched joy spread across the room in color. The children once again scrambled over one another to give me their pictures, this time paper corners covered in the dirt that was their drawing table. One boy, Tokelo, gave me fifteen drawings! He kept coming up and standing with searching eyes and a timid manner, holding out his latest masterpiece. Another little boy Kpotse had such intricate drawings. He handed me a sheet of paper listing out his entire family and interests. The final piece of paper he gave me stated, "I love myself. I love my mom. I love you." When it came time to leave, per usual, it was a large production. The children gathered round to partake in a long precession of farewells, asking when we would be coming back. The most wonderful part was the sheer and utter surprise and delight when the children realized we would not be taking the colored pencils with us, we would be leaving them behind for them and them alone.