Workshops Begin!

Welcome back! Here’s what we’ve been up to since the last blog…..

Over the last 2 weeks we’ve been going into the children’s centres to introduce the theme of climate change and begin designing costumes for the festival. The 5 centres we’re working with are; Mapode Boys (Mutendere compound), Zambia Shanty (Garden compound), Home of Joy (Chongwe district), Chisomo (Linda compound) and Lazarus (Makeni compound). The workshops last for about 2 hours, but getting to them can sometimes take almost as long with big bags, various buses and of course…….THE RAINS!

Workshop 1

The first week we showed the children a short film of the Barefeet carnival 2008 (thanks for the film Gary!), to give those that have never been to a carnival an idea of what it’s like……the costumes, large-scale structures, music, dancing and the exciting and lively atmosphere created with over 1000 children walking through the streets of Lusaka!

With the help of the Barefeet facilitator’s translating from English to Nyanja/Bemba, we talked with the children about climate change, concentrating on their centre’s particular theme, which is either…..

• Nature
• Water
• Air
• Rubbish
• Animafwafwa – a made up word which means ‘animal mess’. The idea being that if humans destroy the world by not looking after it properly, all that will be left are cockroaches and strange creatures made from parts of different animals – hybrids!)

..........and then each child drew 2 pictures;

– The 1st of all the positive things about their theme, and what that particular aspect of the world would look like if we treated it well.

– The 2^nd of all the negative things about their theme, and what that particular aspect of the world will look like if we don’t look after it properly.

After feeding back about their 2 pictures and discussing issues that arose from these, we talked about what materials we could collect to make costumes for the carnival……plastics, cardboard, sticks, fruit pods, wire, cans, crisp packets, nshima sacks (Nshima is the staple food here – grownd down maize which is boiled into a thick sticky consistency, eaten with relish using your hands, and eaten everyday), Shake Shake cartons (very cheap local alcohol, a bit like a lumpy milkshake tasting of barley, and the cartons are scattered all over the streets), bottle tops etc………all items we can either find in the natural environment or that people usually throw away.

Disposing of rubbish is a huge problem in Zambia. Without any free refuse collection, people often throw rubbish in the streets and streams or burn it, all of which pollutes the environment and ultimately effects people’s health. The children’s task over the coming weeks is to collect these items so they can recycle them and create beautiful costumes!

We’ve brought our blagging skills to Zambia, and are doing our bit collecting huge amounts of cardboard from supermarkets. Squeezing it all into Syd’s taxi was pretty funny, and a strange sight for many people to see two muzungu’s (white people) in a car full of rubbish! It’s been really positive getting local businesses involved, and a good way of generating interest in the carnival. Several shops at Arcades (a shopping mall… AKA ‘The entertaining way to shop!’) are collecting plastic bottles, cardboard etc… Thanks to Mimosa, Shortys Shoe Shop and Spar we’ve managed to create a Zambian Scrapstore in our house!

Finally we showed the children a film from New Zealand called WOW (World of Wearable Art) to inspire them with creative ideas to make their costumes fantastic!

Each of the 5 centres will design and make one huge costume, as well as smaller costumes so that each child has something to wear at carnival and the fashion show. Those centres that we aren’t able to work with will make smaller costumes/accessories with their Barefeet facilitator. We ran a facilitator making day last week, so that each facilitator is confident in making these with the children in their centre, on whichever theme they are working to. They made some brilliant costumes!

Workshop 2

During our second workshop we looked at the pictures the children had drawn in the first session, and from these brainstormed words and ideas relating to their theme. Then after looking at some costume books we brought, and some examples of costumes/accessories/props the Barefeet facilitators and we had made, the children began designing a huge carnival costume for their centre!

Some of the centres started making and experimenting with ideas, which they’ll continue to work on over the coming weeks.

NGOMBE OPEN COMMUNITY SCHOOL (ZOCS)

We’ve also started our weekly workshops at Ngombe Open Community School, which is just a short walk from where we’re living, through what seems like people’s back gardens and across a couple of make shift bridges….especially fun in the rain! Last week we were followed for about 5 mins on our walk back home by a group of friendly, lively and very young children shouting “Muzungu, how are you? Muzungu, how are you?” over and over again until we’d left the compound…….replying didn’t seem to help, but it put a smile on our faces for the rest of the day!

At Ngombe Open Community School we are working with 2 classes of about 20 pupils (one young class, one older) who are also looking at the theme of climate change, and what people do in their community to contribute to or prevent this. They are also collecting recycled materials and making costumes for the festival. The group of 40 children will then come along to join in with the carnival in April wearing their costumes!

It’s been a busy but fun couple of weeks……..and so the countdown to carnival begins!!!

Thanks for reading!

Sian and Mia.x