International Children’s Day

Whilst children here can be... challenging they are all really great. You have to remind yourself that their behaviour isn’t always their fault; some if not most of them have pretty tough home lives. Infidelity, alcoholism and domestic abuse are huge problems here and its common for many men to openly have more than one wife or girlfriend. As a result lots of children are missing solid role models and be it because of that or lack of economic stability, their home lives are often far from stable.

It was International Children’s Day on the 20th and to celebrate, as well as doing the weekly mural, I have been doing art projects about games and playing. Like for most children in the world playing is an important part of life. There aren’t a huge amount of activities to get involved with here, especially for kids. There is no play equipment and many cant afford toys so they will literally make games out of anything. The big craze at the moment are small socks filled with rice which the boys play keepy-uppy with but they will also play keepy-uppy with juice cartons, small stones, bits of the bread rolls they get in school, plastic bottles crayons in my classroom... you get the idea. My art projects have focused on chichiguas (kites), which was a fad a few weeks ago - I’m a bit behind the times I know but I thought they would look nicer on my wall than small socks filled with rice.

In the village and in Barahona kids make kites out of sticks with the plastic from plastic bags stretched across them. Driving through Barahona there are always a couple of homemade kites that have found their way through the maze of wires that crisscross the streets and flutter on the skyline.