Catching up: Art Projects/Alex Toys Narti

I owe an enormous thank you to Alex Toys, a company that makes a broad line of arts & crafts supplies and activities for children. In response to a blind letter from me, Alex Toys generously donated two bracelet making projects (beaded braceletes and metal bracelets that kids personalize with stickers, colored pens, and glitter glue) and 12 paint and canvas sets for the girls at Lawajuni. Not only did the girls really enjoy these projects, but also they made a huge difference during the strike -- helping to fill days when school was closed and there wasn't much to do. In addition, the language barrier made it impossible for me to have substantive conversations with the girls, but the art projects helped me to connect with them. My experience at Lawajuni would have been quite different if I had not brought these projects with me.

The first project that we did was the metal bracelets. I started by giving them out to a few girls who were in my room one day, but word spread quickly and suddenly all of the girls were there asking for a bracelet. I thought that this project would take only a few minutes, but I was surprised to find that they spent a long time choosing and coloring in the stickers and somehow the project went on for hours. Thirteen year old Mina was so happy that, upon finishing her bracelet, she ran to her room and came back with a necklace for me. Words cannot express how touched I was by this gesture. I hated to take her necklace from her, but I understood that she really wanted me to have it so I accepted it and decided to pass it on to Sita when I return to Kathmandu. Later, I learned that another volunteer had given the necklace to Sabita (the didi who takes care of the girls) and Sabita had given it to Mina. I am continually amazed at the generosity of the people I meet here. They have almost nothing, yet they always have something to give.

Next we painted. We had 6 canvases that had a picture of flowers in a vase on them and 6 canvases that had a jungle picture on them. The flowers were much more popular, but when we ran out of flower canvases, the girls graciously accepted the remaining jungle canvases and painted all of them. At first, some of the girls told me that they weren't interested in painting, but others were excited about it and eventually some minds were changed. We did half of the canvases one day and the next day girls were begging me to give out the rest of them. At the end of the first day of painting, I was asked several times what I planned to do with the canvases -- was I going to take them back to America? I was surprised by this question, but I was even more surprised by their reaction when I told them that the paintings were going to stay with them at Lawajuni: Some girls jumped up and down excitedly, some thanked me profusely, and some just beamed million dollar smiles. One would think that I was handing out cell phones or MP3 players rather than their own artwork. When I relayed what happened to Cam, he told me that previously another volunteer did some sort of art project with the girls involving cloth and had then taken their artwork back to Australia to try to sell it and raise money for them. Knowing this history and seeing how much joy being able to keep the paintings brought to the girls, I am extremely grateful to Alex Toys for making it possible for me to do this for them.

On the day that we did the beaded bracelets, I again started with just a few girls and soon had all of them lining up for their elastic, beads, and threading needle. It is really amazing how quickly news spreads there. I cut pieces of elastic for each girl and handed out the needles. I assigned Karmu the job putting a knot at one end of each piece to stop the beads and I asked Barsa to take tape off of each of the little cases of beads. As the girls received their supplies, they broke off into little groups to work on their bracelets. I was again surprised at how long this project kept them occupied. Some girls just randomly beaded their bracelets, while others sorted the beads carefully and worked out the patterns that they wanted. Sometimes they didn't like the bracelets that they created and they took off all of the beads and started again.

The bracelet projects came in 54 plastic boxes the size of a videotape. The boxes were mostly empty, so I emptied them and condensed the supplies to transport them to Nepal. I realized, however, that the boxes were perfect for holding things like hair accessories, jewelry, and photos and I thought that the girls would enjoy painting them with the paint that was leftover after the canvases were done. I couldn't bring them all and I suspected that most of them would break in transit, but I decided to bring as many as I could and hope for the best. I was glad that I did because the girls wanted them. Most of the lids broke off and the girls were clearly disappointed by this, but when I apologized for the fact that the boxes were broken, they said "No sorry. Thank you." I wish that I could have brought one for every girl, but I gave them out sort of randomly as girls requested them and somehow, I never had to say no to anyone. I hoped that they would personalize the boxes with their own drawings, but they all painted the same thing: A particular flower, the words "WELCOME NEPAL", and sometimes their names and/or Nepal's flag. I also encouraged them to paint the walls of the hostel and, to the extent that they did this, they painted the same things there as well. Learning in Nepal is based on rote repetition (if you walk by a school, you hear kids chanting their lessons) and copying and it seems that children are never encouraged to be creative, which is too bad.

Finally, on the morning that I left Narti, I gave out another round of metal bracelets. I was really glad that I had saved enough bracelets to do this because it made the girls very happy on an otherwise sad day. It also kept them busy while I finished packing. I spread the bracelets out on my bed for them to take and also put the pens, stickers, and glitter glue at the foot of my bed. When I told them to take the bracelets, the girls asked me whether the decorating materials were also for them and were very happy to hear me say "yes". They also inquired about a pile of extra paints, palettes, and playing cards that I had left in a stack on the floor. Previously, I had given out a box of colored pencils with two coloring books and one of the younger girls, Sabrita, had been working on one of the coloring books for several days. She had finished coloring almost everything in the book, but when I was packing, she brought the coloring book and pencils to me and asked if I wanted them back. Nobody takes anything for granted here!!

The art projects meant more to the girls than I ever could have imagined and also enabled me to have wonderful experiences that I would hate to have missed. Thank you, Alex Toys!!!