Saturday Art Classes in Zapote
We bounce over the rutted road between fields of sugar cane. There is an opening in the fields, and rough huts appear by the road. Chris and Tina wave to the children who start running towards the school. It’s time for the weekly children’s art class in Zapote. By the time we arrive at the school, the whole community has come out to greet us. Over 80 children from 3 to 15 crowd into the single-classroom school eager to participate. Mothers with babies on their hips join the group, and the teenage boys, who are obviously way too cool to participate, watch from the open windows and door. Arte Acción has hired one of the local teenagers to help lead the art workshops, and he has elected to make papier mâché masks this week. We have one container of glue, three tubs for water, and I’m frantically tearing newspaper into strips with the help of some of the children. In Canada, this would be chaos. But not in Nicaragua. The children are so eager to participate, and the mothers are so gratef