Our hopes for the future

Abastecedor Santo DomingoWe are getting in on the groove. Participants arrive between 9 and 10 (the workshop begins at 9, when the library opens.) As they arrive, they open the wiki and get to work on the tasks for the day. This first hour is quite productive for all who arrive early on: the internet connection today was faster then than later on in the day. For when the last ones arrive, internet is already slow, they don´t have time to catch up and we have to start working on other topics, so the lesson is: getting in early is a lot more fun than coming in late! Today Deisy showed up, but Caro couldn´t make it.

Andrea wrote during the week about a community service project she undertook: she bought candy for a man who makes a living selling them, however, after having to pay the purchase of his candy stand he barely has enough to buy some rice and panela (sugar cane sugar) :

ayudar a cumplir un sueño, no es tan difícil como parece, es super fácil regalar una bolsa de confites, bombones o galletas o no??? y quien va a creer que el sueño de alguien es poder tener sus dulces para vender debajo del un puente peatonal.

To help a dream come true is not as difficult as it may seem. It is quite easy to give away a bag of candy, sweets or cookies, isn´t it??? And who would think that someone´s dream is to be able to sell these candies under a pedestrian bridge.

Ángelo didn´t just write, but he also uploaded his band´s song New Idols to his blog:. You can listen to it here. In this post he explains what it means:

Nuevos Idolos refiere al pensamiento de Ernesto Guevara de la Serna cuya ideologia en contra de la injusticia gubernamental no ha podido cristalizarse, pues; no ha nacido otro igual o mejor que èl, que confronte al capitalismo.

… Nuevos Idolos hace enfasis en las falsas cifras que manifiesta el DANE en cuanto al desempleo, entidad maquilladora de una mentira por siempre urgente.

Mientras que en los barrios hay hambre y sufrimiento, unos pocos hombres procuran por ocuparse del “rebusque”; un “empleo utòpico”, que se lleva a cabo, cuando queriendo; no se puede ser esclavo.

New Idols speaks about Ernesto Guevara de la Serna´s ideology against government injustice, an ideal which hasn´t crystallized yet since no one his equal or superior has been born to face capitalism. New Idols showcases the fake numbers the DANE produces regarding unemployment: a whitewashing entity covering up urgent lies. While in the neighborhoods there is hunger and suffering, a few men try and find informal jobs; that or the Utopian employment which is done only when one feels like it; they don´t want to be slaves.

Alejandra tells us about her group Zampues, and how they´ve been growing lately: the full text in Spanish can be found in her blog, Zanpues Art:

Les cuento, para nosotros la intensidad y calidad del grupo ha venido mejorando por los nuevos talentos juveniles que se nos suman inesperadamente; son chicos que van aprovechando sus habilidades inconcientementes que aprendieron en tiempos pasados, en la época del colegio o del ocio con los amigos del barrio.
Es una diversidad gigante de conocimientos, unos saben hacer malabares hasta con 6 (seis) elementos que pueden ser pelotas, frutas…
otros tienen la magia en sus manos porque manejan unos trucos increíbles y muy entretenidos, son chicos geniales y que con el passar la información de la existencia del club zanpues, seguramente harán que prontamente seamos la creatividad multiservicios para la comunidad;

Let me tell you, for us the intensity and quality of the group has been improving thanks to the new talented youth who are unexpectedly joining us; they are kids who take advantage of the skills they unconsciously learned in past times, when they were in school or when hanging out with friends in their neighborhood.
There is a great diversity of knowledge, some can juggle up to six elements, be them balls, fruits… others have magic in their hands because they can handle incredible and entertaining tricks, they are great kids and as the information goes out that Zampues club exists, surely they will soon make us into the multiservice creative entity for our community we want to be.

imago tells us about the work he´s been doing with his students with photography:

Parte de los ejercicios que desarrollo en mi programa de artistica con los alumnos de 11ª grado es este de fotografìa estenopeica o de càmara Pinhole.
Visiten este enlace es de las imàgenes del seguimiento del ùltimo ejercicio el año pasado.
hay algunas càmaras, fotos durante el desarrollo del ejercicio, etc.

Part of the exercises I´ve been working on with my 11th grade art students is pinhole camera photography. In this link you´ll find images of the work done last year. There are some cameras, pictures of the exercise, etc.

Juan Manuel shares:

EN ESTE ULTIMO LAPSO DE TIEMPO LA HE PASADO MUY BIEN PERSONALIZANDO MI BLOGG Y PUBLICANDO TODOS LOS NUEVOS PARCHES YA QUE EL BLOG ME HA SIDO MUY UTIL PARA COMUNICARME CON MUCHA GENTE HE INFORMARLES SOBRE LO QUE VA A PASAR.

TAMBIEN ME HAN PASADO COSAS POSITIVAS CON ESTE BLOG, COMO QUE VA A SALIR POR TELEMEDELLIN EL MIERCOLES A LAS 7:00 DE LA NOCHE Y EL JUEVES A LAS 3:OO DE LA TARDE, COMO EJEMPLO DE LO QUE HEMOS APRENDIDO EN ESTE TALLER.

Lately I´ve had a good time personalizing my blog and publishing all about the new activities since this blog has been quite useful to communicate with a lot of people, letting them know what is going to happen.
Positive things have also happened thanks to this blog, it will be shown in Telemedellin on wednesday at 7pm and thursday at 3pm as an example of what we´ve learned in this workshop.

At 11am we decided to head out for a snack and bought some goodies at our favorite store in Santo Domingo (the one in the picture) and as we ate we talked about what we hope this workshop will become in the near future. What the participants mentioned went hand in hand with our own ideas: we want to stop working so much in front of the computers when we are in the library (it takes forever to do anything) and it would be better to concentrate on the individual multimedia projects. The Zampues girls Ale and Yennifer, came up with the idea of taping sometime in the middle of the week a puppet show and learn how to record, edit and upload videos. Ángelo and Deisy were excited about the idea of reporting about the AltaVoz concerts (free concerts featuring local and international bands) in 15 days. Jorge will try his best to see if they can be given press passes.

We discussed the Medeatón, the trip to Pop!Tech, the idea of having strong products to show and tell others of what we´ve been working on. I also told them about our invitation to write for LatinaLista.net and tell about the life of women in Medellin.

In conclusion: the greatest part of it all is that we´re having fun while doing these workshops.

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *