Theme of the month: Leaving marks.
Focus of week 1: Remembrances.
Rachel and my final week volunteering at Meninadança's Pink House in Medina happened to coincide with the first week of a new theme for the girls: Leaving your Mark. This month the girls will face a lot of disruption with not just Rachel and I leaving, but also saying goodbye temporarily to long term volunteer dance teacher Lauren Batty, and both hello and goodbye to a team of Australian volunteers who will only have one week in Medina. Bearing in mind the girls had found the first set of volunteers leaving very difficult, we as a team felt it was important this month to set a theme which would help both them and the staff and volunteers to process some of the emotions around separation and loss.
(Left) Rachel and I are back to the start point of the volunteer clock, time to say "tchau". / (middle) Theme of the month: Leaving marks, word of the week, remembrances / (right) The label on my plant-pot where I planted cress: "I hope that I am planting a seed about how to express yourself through art, planted with peace and love, Kim"
Project Proposal: Each girl to create a plant pot by decorating an old plastic bottle and to plant some spring onion and basil seeds, writing on a label what she is planting and how she would like to see it grow. Once the seeds have grown into plants the foodstuff can be used by Casilandia in the Pink House kitchen.
Project Aim: For each girl to watch her own plant grow from the sees she has planted, noticing how the seed needs to be cared for, given enough water and sunlight and space to grow and alongside reflecting for herself what care she needs to be able to grow and develop happily. In watching her seed develop over time, continuing to grow after we volunteers who helped plant it have gone, the girls will be invited to reflect on how the metaphorical seeds that we all plant in one another when we are together continue to grow and develop in us over time. When it comes to the time to use the foodstuffs in the kitchen, observing the practical use of the plant they have cared for.
Process:
1. Create the plant pot: the girls washed out old plastic drinks bottles and cut a rectangle along one side in the middle. They pierced the opposite side with holes which will allow water to drain, and decorated them with paint and/ or collage. They learned about mixing primary colours to create secondary colours.
2. Plant the seeds: the girls filled their bottles with earth and took cress or spring onion seeds and planted them in 2cm deep dips in the earth.
3. Label the plant pot: the girls each wrote a personalised label with their name and their idea of what they were planting. Some were very literal, others more metaphorical, including hopes, dreams and feelings.
Some examples of the girls final plant pots:
(Left) I hope that what I am planting grows strong and lives well, using art, peace, hope. /
(Right) I hope that it is born beautiful.
(Left) I would like to plant a seed that grows with peace and love. / (right) I am planting a seed of peace.
(Left) I planted cress because when it grows it will grow happy. / (right) ..planted with..because I like...
(Left) I planted this seed with the hope that it grows strongly along with my dreams. / (right) I hope that I am planting a seed of how to express yourself with art, planted with love and peace. Kisses!
(Left)I am planting this seed. I hope that it grows with a lot of love, peace, hope, happiness and unity like the others that God...God will take care of everyone and he will give life to everyone of them. Amen. / (right) That this seed only bears good fruits, lifeting itself up to grow more every day.
Conversation circles:
Alongside the planting we spoke with the girls in the conversation circles about the pending departures. The girls were encouraged to write letters of poems for Raquel, Lauren and I. One moment where one girls held Raquel and my hands in hers and spontaneously recited a poem for us brought tears to my eyes. The love of these beautiful girls is so powerful.
In one conversation circle we volunteers led we also spoke with the girls about the seeds that the permanent staff are planting in them, and invited them to draw and write their feelings and ideas about what marks Rita, Maria, Cristina, Aline and Casilandia are leaving with them.
Rachel, Lauren and I also wrote and drew our own, thinking about what we have been learning and admiring in each of the permanent staff and added them to the girls piles:
Celebrating Casilandia, the gorgeous cook. My thanks to Casi: "Beautiful smiles, the base of the Pink House, feeding everyone with tasty meals, always has time for everyone."
Celebrating Aline (left): "excellent exercise about the positive and negtive of mothers, beautiful idea of planting seeds, very chic!!"
Celebrating Crsitina (middle): "resources from MundoJovem, using brilliant ideas in conversation circles to facilitate reflection of our themes, giving voice to the girls, using hand puppets to self-express"
Celebrating Maria (right): "sewing flowers, strong hugs, growing alongside God"
(left) One of the girls draws Rita's hand blokcing a snake labelled 'danger'. / (right) Celebrating Rita: "The power of the Pink House, the power of women, strength, love, incredible woman, leader, believes in everyone. Hope in flight. Securing and protecting the girls in her hands."
The girls 'award' themselves bracelets and rings to celebrate their achievements:
Rachel and I gifted a set of multi-coloured threads to the Pink House for the girls to use to make jewellery. When I arrived I had noticed how much the girls loved my 'hippie' macrame bracelets, so thought it would be a nice thing for them to make themselves jewellery, as gifts to themselves to mark and celebrate all their achievements over the 5 months since the Pink House has been open, thinking of the pieces as trophies!
Helping hands, and enjoying the wool!
Some girls used my technique of starting a ring or bracelet from a can-tab.
Rachel and I are treated like princesses by the girls during our final day in the beauty salon:
As well as the daily gifts of the girls company, hugs, smiles and laughter, Rachel and I were gifted a day of beauty for our final Thursday at the Pink House beauty salon. We had our hair washed and straightened and our toe and fingernails painted. I was hugely impressed by my hair, and the gorgeous girl who did it for me was ever so proud of herself, asking me to tell everyone that it was her handiwork, and indeed I did, sending my Mum this photo later on that evening Thank you so so much girls!! :-)
The Pink House Family photo album:
As a joint gift to all the girls Rachel and I created a photo album celebrating the progress of the Pink House Family. We printed photos from when the house opened back in January of this year, including all the staff, volunteers and girls who have been involved in the house over the months and the different performances and projects that have been enjoyed so far.
With a few very late nights in that last week Rachel and I managed to cut over 60 pink hearts to make hand-made cards with a handwritten message in everyone for each individual girl and all of the friends that we have made in Medina. We also gave the girls copies of poems we had written for them as a group, and read them out on our last day, again with tears in the eyes.
I have been so hugely impressed by the love of the girls and our friends in Medina and their huge open hearts. I will truly miss my Pink House Family. I am missing them already, only a few days on. What a privilege to have had this opportunity to be alongside these wonderful people. I have learned huge volumes, work wise, culturally, and perhaps most importantly, about loving fully and expressing your emotions openly and honestly. Beautiful!
Meninadança, in the rythym of life:
You are loved.
You are special.
You are worthy of your dreams.
So to all the girls and friends of Meninadança and Medina, thank you so so much, thank you from the depths of my heart, for all that you have each shared with me. As I wrote in my poem, no matter how far apart in body, I will always carry you in my heart and soul.
With all my love,
:-)
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