1st week down and amazing students

Although we had an idea, we really did not know what to expect and they have blown any expectations we would have had, totally out of the water.  The students whom I refer to as beautiful, smart and important every day, are exactly that, beautiful, smart and important.  The drawings that they have done are not really comprehensible.  When you realize they have never had this experience and some of them so get the depth and figure, etc, you just look at some of these drawing and question, wow, they made Kibera Beautiful......It looks beautiful.  There comprehension of art and artists and periods of time, renaissance, impressionism, landscape.  Hearing them read about history and pronounce Toulouse Lautrec with a Kenyan Swahili british mix accent and are so proud when they are able to speak in front of class. 

Margaret has been able to really get the students to focus on genre, form and landscape and understanding the importance.  They all get it.

What has been most impressive was that they took home cameras yesterday to start the photography part of this art immersion and all we can sit back and keep saying is that "did they take that?"  Wow---Wow .  The pictures are so beautiful and hard and telling and all that you did not expect and this was in a 24 hour period that they had the cameras.  We had some technical difficulty with a camera or 2 but all is fine.  They have the cameras for the weekend and I cannot wait to see what they come up with on Monday.

After class we went to see David Dinda's home and his brothers home with 4 siblings, 5 nieces/nephews and met many people,  7 people live in a 7x7 room and it is decorated and beautiful in an odd way.  David also showed us his home that he lives in on his own so he can study, small no water, electricity is rigged in some how.

We saw inner Kibera and it was filled with squalor, beauty, hope, pain, abject poverty and at the same time, welcoming.  The most alarming aspects of Nairobi are the contrasts.  We spent the morning in Mathaiga in the village market.  This is by far the highest rent district of Nairobi, Kenya, with nice stores and a nice open air market as well as great chocolate shoppes (you know me).  Margaret would find something she wanted and I would come in for the kill and bargain til we got what we wanted or I would walk away and then they would circle back.

The deputy headmaster Beatrice and I sat and she asked me after looking at Art and Photography and asked me how many years Margaret and I had been teaching in this type of setting and I started to internally shake because I was unsure what she would say next.  She said that she could have never imagined that they would have this much talent and be able to demonstrate this in such a short time.  She was so excited for the beauty that they have created and the talent they exhibit. Wouldn't it be great to see one of these student displaying in a museum.

One never know!  Anything is possible......

More later,

Charles and Margaret