Okay, so the last few days have been hectic. . .
Here's what I've been up to. . .
Wednesday
I finished up work and headed into town to attend a protest at the Chinese embassy. Given that it was the anniversary of the Tiananmen Square protests of 1989, Amnesty International, along with the Burma Center, laid out flowers and candles in front of the famous tank picture across the street from the embassy. They also wrote a letter to the Ambassador to China, asking him to stop the injustices done to the mothers of Tiananmen, who have been threatened for their appeals to talk about what happened on that day. The turnout was rather small, given the rainy weather, but it was interesting to note that the police came out in full force to oversee the small group of people, peacefully demonstrating in the street.
After the demonstration, I went to tea with Gwen from Peacework and my partners at the Burma Center. We discussed my work for the summer and put together a plan of action. They are so incredibly passionate about the Democracy School and their vision is big and very intricate. In turn, I asked if I could help them by creating a sort of "project toolkit" with the necessary paperwork, timelines, etc. that they need in order to get a project of this size underway. They know what they want to do at the School - I will work on the how. I promised them that I could get them a solid binder of information and resources by the end of the summer - so that's my plan.
Thursday
After putting in a couple of hours at CEELI, I headed to Praha 6 to visit with Iva (my host) at the School of Arts that she teaches at, to help with a project on Flat Stanley. The school, Zakladni Umelecka Skola, is absolutely beautiful - an old villa that has been converted into an after-school center for visual art, music, and drama. Children 5 to 17 come to the school after finishing their daily studies and work on various projects that have city-wide recognition. Iva, as a painter, works with these children on various projects ranging from sculpture to portraiture, and the students often have exhibitions showing throughout the nation.
After showing Iva my Flat Stanley, Dean and Eric, she decided that she would have her students also create Flat Stanleys and create a project out of it. I showed up at the school about an hour before class was to start, and made 40 Flat boys and girls. The children arrived and after Iva announced that I spoke only English, the giggling and whispering ensued and children were pushed forth by their friends to say "hello" and "where are you from?" in shy English. Lots of smiles, goofy faces, and sharing of red colored pencils later, we were good friends.
After finishing their Flats, the children and I ran around outside taking pictures of their creations - on the stairs, in the grass, and especially in the trees. One young man climbed a 14 foot ladder to get his Flat in just the right spot. Iva didn't seem concerned about lawsuits, so I just smiled and snapped the picture as quickly as possible. With about 30 minutes left, Iva sneakly said something to the children in Czech and we headed back to the room, where the children began drawing, coming up to me periodically to peer at my face and measure my eyes with their fingers. Each of them created a black and white portrait of me. I was amazed at how beautiful I looked in their pictures - until some of them started shading in smile lines and wrinkles. :) However, the portraits are all quite memorable and I will cherish them for a long time to come. I will post pictures of those as soon as they are done being sprayed to keep the charcoal shading in place. All in all, I remembered how much I love working with kids, being a teacher, and having a classroom - and it made me miss my Bronx kiddos.
Finally, after all of that, I was in the throngs of a full-blown migraine, but trekked back to Praha 2 to have dinner with Jenne and Gwen from Peacework, Amanda, and an intern at the Peacework office. We ate an amazing dinner and mojitos at Radost FX - an all vegetarian restaurant. After some great conversation, I had to bow out because my migraine had gotten to that "get-in-bed-NOW" point, and I made the long haul back to Uholicky where I promptly passed out.
All in all, it has been a great few days. I'm ready for a nice relaxing weekend and working out my itinerary for the rest of my time here. Hope things are well for all of you!
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