See & Sprout Part III

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This evening I flew solo with the kids. It was a wonderful opportunity for me to do two things I love. Teach, and work with words. Because a good chunk of my background is in journalism and I found a real sense of security when I surround myself with words, I was content to be left with teaching this portion of the project on my own. Pee Kwang was unable to join me because of other orphanage work.

After school, a few of the kids who completed their homework early, signed out the cameras and disappeared for a couple of hours. Some amazing photography came out of this session. The lighting was gorgeous in the early evening. I have to admit I was blown away by a few of the pictures.

After dinner the kids gathered again and we quickly flipped through the few of their pre-selected photos to select one for the evenings writing session. I encouraged the kids to choose pictures that were different in some way, a reflection of things they felt rather than just saw.

Then we sat down on the patio to write. With little direction and a whole lot of hope we worked through the initial writers block that every child seems to struggle with when faced with a piece of blank paper, but slowly, with my miming and some translation help from one of the girls, Nam, I helped each of them “talk about” their pictures.

Pee Kwang joined us about an hour into the session which was the ideal time to be helpful with some of the nuances of Thai language. Mook-yai wanted the appropriate word for “hope” in Thai. Apparently there are a few options for this term…my fave transliteration site lists:
Wang; wang waa; kwanm wang; paa-waa-nah; a-ti-taan…etc. You get the idea.
The Thai dictionary even made an appearance with one girl searching through….

With the drafts complete, the kids worked on their “good” copies and submitted them. Most of them kept their pictures, except for Pon who knew I really liked hers and gave it to me to keep. 

Our next session will be on Sunday, when the kids will go on a field trip with Staci and John for a few hours. Monday evening is our second writing session and then on Tuesday we wrap up the project.

…this is the coolest thing I have done here…..

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