All-Day Creativity Workshop

Here's a collage of photos from the Workshop on March 17th. (To see more detail, click on the collage.)

Because of space limitations we had set 15 as the maximum participants. Exactly 15 attended. As each Workshop has been different, so this one turned out differently than even the 2-hour Workshop at the same location just a few days before. This time there were about half & half nationals and internationals attending. Some of the internationals had literally just gotten off the airplane!

We're still in the midst of moving so more photos will be posted after the move is complete. We'll also try to include a posting with some photos from the new flat.

A "Taste" of Creativity

Saturday's 2-hour pilot-seminar at Bookwise - the bookstore near Reflections Gallery - went well. With 25 attending, every chair was taken. The participants were very responsive and, following the workshop, many intentionally approached us to give some very encouraging feedback.

The participants were from quite different backgrounds compared to previous pilots:

• Previous pilots included - religious leaders, university students, destitute (impoverished, starving, abandoned, dying), and slum children (cancelled).

• Saturday's pilot included - a doctor, a counselor, 4 businesspersons, a professor, 3 university students, 4 artists, an architect, a designer, 2 lawyers, and several unidentified backgrounds.

Next up: an all-day Workshop at the same location on Tuesday, March 17. Due to the interactive nature of the planned activities, we've set a limit of 15 participants. Five participants from Saturday's "Taste" committed to attend the all-day Workshop and several more expressed strong interest.

Also as a result of Saturday's "Taste," three more pilots are being discussed tentatively for April: one for a clinic with HIV-positive children, one for the personnel of a business, one for a neighborhood association.

With great sorrow, we declined an opportunity to present the pilot over three days to a group of slum-school teachers only because it conflicted with the Workshop on the 17th, guests from the 12th to the 21st, and shifting flats during that same time!

Set up...


First arrival...








Participants...

Nepal Visit #3 - Some "Legal" Issues

[This post was originally intended as part of the Nepal sequence in February
but "disappeared" into the internet ether.
It just reappeared in a folder (!?), so here it is!]

Currency Exchange
The first day we had an extraordinary encounter with a money changing office in which they claimed we had passed a counterfeit Indian Rs. 1,000 bill (India is experiencing quite a problem with counterfeit currency, especially Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500, but recent reports include Rs. 50s and Rs. 20s).

As it turned out, the bill wasn't counterfeit, merely an older version, but we suspect this exchange might have been another variation of a currency scam.

An interesting final note: as we were leaving the Kathmandu Airport for return to Delhi, there was a sign posted at the departing security gate notifying travelers that it was illegal to even bring into Nepal Indian Rs. 1,000 and Rs. 500 currency. We wondered why this sign was posted here rather than at entry :)!

Brief Conversation
[Fortunately, there is no known connection between this incident and the previous one.]

One afternoon as we were eating, two gentlemen at the table next to us engaged us in conversation. As we talked about education and life in Nepal, we discovered one of them was the founder and principal of a near-by school. We also discovered the other was a policeman!

Some of us assume a police officer is an officer of the law, which however is not always true in some parts of the world. We became more than a bit alarmed.

At this point it seems to have been nothing more than an innocent conversation, but it made us aware of how vulnerable we were as guests in another country and hoped we hadn't given out "too much personal information.".

Sewa Ashram #2

This young man in a wheel chair produced some of the most colorful and strong compositions...






Janis begins an impromptu art lesson on request from "Heli-" short for "Helicopter" - not his real name but the name he likes to go by. Not long ago he was begging on the streets, but now is in school and operates a small canteen for the residents.












Another of the young artists Chuck worked with...












One of the residents began painting prolifically about 4-years ago. His works are displayed all over the Ashram. Here are three in one of the residents' sleeping areas...












Taking a break from painting...


We think this is an apple or piece of fruit, though we're not sure, the young girl who painted it is only 3-years-old! She had no help!!! The photo doesn't do it justice - it is truly a beautiful painting.











Stefan, the founder of the Foundation, hanging the day's artwork for an exhibition to the residents...

Sewa Ashram - A Safe Place For The Destitute #1

Sewa Ashram is:

• ... a rehabilitation center for sick, destitute people that has cared for the poorest of the poor since 1997. Regularly our team patrols through the streets of Delhi and picks up those extreme cases who have been abandoned, overlooked or left to die by others. At our community setting, 25 km outside of Delhi, we nurse them back to life by providing free medical care and long-term rehabilitation. Many of our recovering patients help out with the day to day needs of the Ashram by caring for each other. In this way we run on a humble budged based on compassion and love. (Quoted from their website: http://delhihouse.org/index.php?option=com_frontpage&Itemid=1)
  

The Ashram grounds are artistically laid out with cobblestone paths and various gardens for flowers and vegetables.




























Some of the residents making art...








One of the young artists Chuck worked with...








Two paintings by a former resident...









A resident spinning yarn...