My trip to Nicaragua – Drawing with kids

One of my favorite memories of my last trip to Nicaragua was drawing for kids at a school. History did repeat itself…twice.

 

 

We visited the mountain town of Talolinga and, while watching instructors from Taller Artistico Xuchialt teach traditional landscaping painting, I saw a couple of kids hanging back. I waved them over and started drawing Bo Nanas for them. After that, since I don’t speak Spanish, I wasn’t sure how to get them to draw with me. So I drew a hand, handed the pencil to the boy next to me to have him draw a hand. He actually copied the hand I drew but, heck, it worked.  We drew a lot of animals and ended up with three boys drawing with me. They even copied the sketchy lines I used.

 

 

A few days later we went to Las Tais, a program for at-risk kids. We were going there to help prepare a mural for restoration and we didn’t expect many kids since it was summer vacation in Nicaragua. We walked in and were immediately mobbed. The kids grabbed our hands and started playing games with us. I was involved in a session of ring-around-the-rosy that I really didn’t understand. I then made up my own version with sound effects instead of words. (In the video that one of the students took I look like the abominable snowman from “Rudolf the Red-nosed Reindeer” playing with elves.)

Then I started drawing Bo Nanas for a couple of kids. That quickly devolved into me drawing with kids, as you can see above. We moved over to the tables and even more kids, as well as our students, joined us. It was a wonderful, energizing experience.