(...)
Because the group was finally completed, once the siblings Miguel and Oliver joined in after having been back from abroad, we took the group photo for the attendance certificates.
Pedro, Sara, André (kneeling down), Oliver, Miguel G., Maria and Miguel in the front row (from left to right); Samuel, Tomaz, Francisco, Miguel R., Clara, Zaida and Patricia in the back row (from left to right).
We started off the morning work by reading the legend of Midas and deciding on which pages each of them would read out for the final presentation on Friday. We then finished the transcription we had initiated the previous day that "took us back" to Kenya and started another one, this time regarding the life of a young girl in Afghanistan.
Despite the fact that these should be exercises of vocabulary extension and listening skills development I realised the children were always keen to extend their knowledge on what life is in the countries we were "travelling through", basically because the main characters of those "life stories" were children who happened to have their ages and seemed to lead lives which are completely different from theirs.
We had a brief late morning break, in which some of the boys still had time to play a card game, though they were dying to go back into the classroom and finish their artistic endeavours (in the case of the siblings Reis it would mean to actually initiate theirs).
Prior to that we still analysed some of the self portraits they had been asked to do on the first day, one in which they were requested to express their likings, aspirations, personality traits and whichever they felt important for the viewer to get to know them. I had previously selected some Frida Kahlo's portraits for the girls and Van Gogh's for the boys. Three of the girls did excel in their approach to this task, which even impressed the boys in the classroom.
With slightly less than the daily half an hour for the artistic activities three of the boys still managed to finish the 3D constructions they had initiated two days ago - Miguel G. the Sidney Opera House, Tomaz the Willis Tower and Miguel the Mayan pyramid.
By the end of the day, as I walked in to leave the written material for the next day I couldn't but feel proud with their finished constructions but also the unfinished artistic works. As I set my eyes on the scrapping "canvases" and the one of coloured sand I felt almost instantaneously proud of the meticulous work behind them.
Every group is special in its own way but the undeniably fact was that both Ana and I were extremely happy to be able to work with such marvellous "young men and women".
(To be continued)
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