GeJiu Service Trip-Part 5: Painting the Mural #2

The Kunming International Academy annual spring service trip, a chance for our high school students to obtain service hours (a requirement for graduation), took us to an orphanage outside the city of GeJiu, about a five-hour bus ride south-southeast of Kunming.  This is the fifth installment in a series of picture about that trip.  This particular set of photos looks at how our KIA students served the members of the orphanage by beautifying the special needs play area with one of three murals.

The designers and creators of this vision had one major benefit that the entrance wall mural workers did not:  a clean, painted surface on which to start.  It probably also helped that the entire wall on which these painters were working was considerably smaller than that of the entrance.

Because very little preparation was needed, the students working in the special needs ward begin immediately on the first day sketching out their plan for the wall.  Above, Sean (grade 12, Korea) uses a "straight" mop handle to draw the basic pattern for the wall.

Once the basic pattern had been set, the next phase began.  Students used brushes and white gloves to spread paint in the design.  Sean holds the yellow paint for Katy (grade 10, Korea), and Jonathan (grade 11, Korea) spreads paint with his hand.  The strength of the blue wall meant that multiple coats were necessary.

Parts of the design required both broad strokes and fine.  Paul (grade 9, Korea) uses a wide brush to fill in the larger design, leaving the finer details for later.  While the mural on the wall utilized primary and secondary colors, the painting on the special needs wall also brought in the use of pastels, colors that young children enjoy.

Once the broad and fine strokes were completed the first time, the second and third coats of paint brought real life to the picture.  Katy (background) uses a fine brush to touch up section of the mural, while an unidentified student works in the foreground to make the picture more clear.

Even though this mural is small compared to the entrance wall, it was still impossible to get a picture of the entire design in one photo.  However, once completed, a kind of rainbow with stars, hearts, musical notation, and elephants invited the young special needs children to their play area.

GeJiu Service Trip-Part 4: Painting the Mural #1

 The Kunming International Academy annual spring service trip, a chance for our high school students to obtain service hours (a requirement for graduation), took us to an orphanage outside the city of GeJiu, about a five-hour bus ride south-southeast of Kunming.  This is the fourth installment in a series of picture about that trip.  This particular set of photos looks at how our KIA students served the members of orphanage by beautifying the entrance with one of three murals.

 Sometimes, all a place really needs to make it feel new is a new coat of paint.  In the case of the entrance to the orphanage, the students designed and created two murals.  The first found its way onto a 100 meter wall that lines the south side of the orphanage properties entrance.  This was probably the largest single project our students completed during the week, and it required the bulk of our student body to come to fruition.

Before the new mural could be started, the wall needed to be cleaned and whitewashed.  This process took more than just one day; actually, these first two steps took the better part of the two days.  However, when they had completed the whitewashing, the wall was prepared to accept its beautiful new design.

Once the walled had been washed and had received a thick coat of white paint, the real design began.  The entire wall received a new color.  As nice as white is, sky blue actually made the wall look new.  Plus, it made it easier to see the mural from the opposite side of the orphanage property, approximately 200 meters away.

The day after the blue covered the wall, strange reindeer-like figures started appearing on the wall.  These dark brown figures looked a bit like some kind of Martian life form, or maybe some type of extant alphabet.  Although rather eerie looking, the project still looked better than when we arrived.

However, a blue wall with bizarre dark figures was not to be the final product of the week.  To complete the last phase of the mural, many hands came to the wall to help give more shape to the dark figures.  At first, many of the hands had no idea what they were doing, but when they started to come together, the overall design of the mural came to life.

On the final day, before we hopped back into our buses to return to Kunming, the entire student body took a picture with Mr. Wajda (in orange), the American volunteer at the orphanage and Mr. Duan (in the blue shirt), the government head of the orphanage.  In this photo, one can see the final product on the wall in the background:  the trees display the change of seasons, and all those hands are actually leaves on the trees.

After the original grey, the color of the mural really brightened the entrance to the orphanage.  Someday it will need to be replaced, but hopefully we will be able to bring more students to create the new design in the future.

GeJiu Service Trip-Part 3: The Minority School

The Kunming International Academy annual spring service trip, a chance for our high school students to obtain service hours (a requirement for graduation), took us to an orphanage outside the city of GeJiu, about a five-hour bus ride south-southeast of Kunming.  This is the third installment in a series of picture about that trip.  This particular set of photos looks at a day-trip  to a nearby village school that is populated predominantly with minority children and how KIA's students served them with a one-day fun fair.

Let's face it:  the average student does not view school as fun, regardless of how nice the school is.  On a good day, interesting, educational, even possibly fascinating, but not fun.  Now imagine that you are a student cramped in a room with nearly forty of your peers, the only color on the walls come from an ornately designed chalkboard and the brownish-grey smudges left by time and the hordes of hands that have come within these same walls for years before you.  The classroom's light emanates from either the smeared glass of barred windows or the eight to ten bare white light bulbs dangling from dusty wires suspended from the ceiling.  Paint chips off the walls daily. Your just glad that your classroom received the brand new metal and corrugate desks with matching benches, which are a great deal better than the old, rickety wood box desks with narrow plank benches that used to be in there (and are still used by members of other classes).  No, this classroom picture does not instill the idea of fun.

However, as luck would have it, a bunch of foreigners are supposed to arrive and turn your school into a fun fair, complete with games, clowns, balloons, funny animals, and  other fun activities.  This will not be a normal day; this may actually turn into a fun day of school.

Above is a close approximation to a standard Chinese classroom.  However, there are a few things missing:  twice the number of students, piles of books on each desk that would obscure these children's faces from view, and those beaten wood desks with their uncomfortable wood benches (each wood bench would be half the width of the benches you see and would not have a backrest on which to lean).  Evidently, just having a foreigner present to take these students' picture was enough to bring smiles to their faces.

A fun fair would not be very fun without games.  Brandon (grade 11, USA) administrates the beanbag toss game.  Just visible on the ground in front of the mesh basket is a box of Oreo "sticks" that were given out as prizes.  While the beanbag toss and the other games were meant to be competitive, every child received the prize for trying.  As you can see, some of these minority students actually come to school dressed in their minority outfits--the girl in the foreground tossing the bean bag and the girl waiting in line on the right of the picture.

My mother, who has volunteered as a clown in a children's hospital ward, will tell you that not all children love these red-nosed masters of mirth.  However, let's face it, a fun fair would not be very fun without a clown, and Zach (grade 10, USA) certainly fits the description of a clown.  In his suit of many colors and his red nose, he fashioned all sorts of balloon creations to hand out to the students of the school.

Sometimes fun requires one to sit still and be attended to by a very steady hand.  Kiera (grade 9, USA) painted designs on students' hands and arms.  Although each student looked quite serious during the application of the paint, once the design was complete, the smiles of pride accompanied pulled up sleeves to show off their unique body art.

Occasionally, fun arrives in the form of a new story spoken in your own language by someone who looks like you.  Kevin (grade 12, USA/Canada, but whose parents are originally from Kunming) reads Ni Shi Wo de Hai zi (translated You Are My Child), a story by Max Lucado that introduces these students to the idea of how much their Creator loves them.

In all, this school day registered off the top end of the fun scale for everyone involved.  Games, balloons, art, and stories swept away the mundane, at least for one day.  Hopefully, the power of the fun and the love these foreigners displayed will continue affect the lives of these students until we can return.

GeJiu Service Trip-Part 2: The Adults

The Kunming International Academy annual spring service trip, a chance for our high school students to obtain service hours (a requirement for graduation), took us to an orphanage outside the city of GeJiu, about a five-hour bus ride south-southeast of Kunming.  This is the second installment in a series of picture about that trip.  This particular set of photos looks at the adults of the orphanage and how KIA's students served them during our trip.

When  one hears the word orphanage, one usually thinks of abandoned children--children who, for one reason or another, find themselves without parents or a home.  However, in GeJiu, the term takes on new meaning when one encounters a community of abandoned elderly--adults who, for one reason or another, have found themselves without a family to take care of them or home in which to live.  Some of these adults have been living here for years, even decades, many with very few, if any, visits from their immediate family members.  Once again, the staff of this facility have worked hard to provide these older members of society with a comfortable place to live, in the face of the absence of a home.

Lois, KIA's high school math teacher, joins the elderly members of the orphanage in performing the hand motions to a song the students were teaching everyone.  While these older men and women have the opportunity to get out during the day (much like their infant and toddler counterparts), the rarely have more than each other to encourage activity that brings regular smiles (much like their infant and toddler counterparts).  The orphanage workers do a wonderful job of trying to keep these adults active, but once again, the number of workers compared to the number of members in the community simply makes this task difficult.  With the arrival of the KIA students, our high schoolers provided four days of singing and dancing and other activities to eliminate some of the daily monotony.

In this photo, Esther (grade 11, Korea) dances with one of the men of the community.  Too often we forget that our cultures' elderly were once young like us, so we also lose sight of the fact that they love to sing and dance and simply be active.  Seeing their eyes light up at being encouraged to be young again, our students learned what it means to be forever a child at heart.

These men clap along to a song the students played on their guitars and sang for the elderly.  Much like the infants and toddlers, these older men and women love the power of music to drive away boredom.  Many times, when our students had nothing else planned to do with the elderly, just pulling out the guitar and singing was activity enough to bring smiles.

KIA's Korean students are masters of games that involve clapping and chanting.  In this photo, Chae Rin (far left, grade 9, Korea), Grace (middle, grade 11, Korea), and Peter (far right, grade 11, USA) play a game that encourages hand clapping with one's neighbor.  Watching them play, the game's rhythm sounded and felt like the beat of friendship.

Because Yunnan Province is home to no less than 56 minority people groups, it came as no surprise that some of the children and adults at the orphanage are members of a minority group.  This woman is a member of one of the Miao (pronounced meow) minorities.  She graciously lent her minority clothing to--from left to right--Leah (grade 11, USA), Grace, Esther, and Alyssa (grade 11, USA). 

On my first morning at the orphanage, I met a young man who was at least mostly blind (it was difficult to tell if he could see blurry shapes or not).  He said that he did not know his name, but that he had lived at the orphanage for twelve years, and that he is 33 years old.  He has a slight cleft in his palate, and he may be slightly developmentally challenged.  I shared half my apple with him.  Watching him eat was difficult because he only had about five or six upper teeth and a few more than that on the bottom.  Even so, his smile at receiving the apple, and another smile at receiving a pat on the back as I stood saying, "Zai jian" were enough to let me know that he had been served.  The strange thing about service is this:  When you are certain you have truly served someone, you also become certain that you have truly been served.

GeJiu Service Trip-Part 1: The Children

 The Kunming International Academy annual spring service trip, a chance for our high school students to obtain service hours (a requirement for graduation), took us to an orphanage outside the city of GeJiu, about a five-hour bus ride south-southeast of Kunming.  This is the first installment in a series of picture about that trip.  This particular set of photos looks at the children of the orphanage and how KIA's students served them during our trip.

 When I saw this young boy's sweatshirt, I could not help but add him to the photo album.  Because I was born and raised in Nebraska, I naturally loved seeing this Big Red hoodie.  In this photo, Nathan (grade 10, USA) tumbles with one of the orphanage's special needs children.  Looking on is Lexi (grade 12, USA) who also helped in the special needs ward. 

 Anna (grade 9, USA) has her hands full taking care of three young ones at the orphanage.  The staff at this facility is gentle and caring, but there is only so much a limited number of hands can do to provide these children with the personal time they need to develop.  KIA's students provided relief to the staff members and time for the children; it may have only been for four days, but everyone seemed to enjoy the change of atmosphere.

 Marie (grade 12, Austria) helps during bath time.  Having a younger sister of her own, Marie is particularly adept at taking care of little ones.  Her smile and tender voice calmed the children before, during, and after their baths.

 One thing that seems to be universal is that children love music.  The children at the orphanage in GeJiu are no different.  Hanmi (grade 10, Korea) and Tasha (grade 12, Singapore) sing songs with the toddlers from the children's ward.  As is the case with children around the world, the music had a way of calming down the little ones at the orphanage.

Outdoor play is something that is made so much easier when many more hands are present.  The staff at the orphanage provide time for the children to play inside and outside, but with the difference between the number of children and the number of staff being so great, sometimes the children do not receive personal attention.  In this photo, Tim (grade 12, USA) helps a daring boy ride his scooter down a decline.  Having one high school student to himself, this boy proceeded to ride the slope many times over.

No orphanage is an ideal place; the mere fact that orphanages exist is sad.  However, based on the number of horror stories circulating about orphanages around the world, this particular facility is idyllic in its cleanliness and in the way its staff cares for the children.  And while our students received the opportunity to serve the staff and children of this facility, there is little doubt that the joy of both groups ultimately served one another.