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Date Posted: 2003-09-26 09:25:25
hello everyone,its john.Well the first session at Baxter is over and I think it worked out well. Siv and I talked about it on our 3+half drive home.We both thought it went like most starts, a lot of mixed messages from the participants,a new workplace to explore and understand and a bit of a hangover.We met with family groups first who were so polite(as with all the detainees),they shook our hands and we tried to get our heads around their arabic names.
We started some drawing and found that using some colour was far more exciting and effective.
The session went for three hours and by the end of it everyone was really happy and quite interested in coming back for more. A few of the family members said that they would not be albe to come back on Sunday because they were expecting visitors.
The day was really hot and dusty, so we all were holding our breath for the afternoon session, as the guards said that most of our participants would probably be asleep at this time. (The single men tend to stay up all night and sleep all day until the afternnoon.)
The participants arrive in dribs and drabs and seem to talk amongst themselves. We start to explain the project to everybody and a lot of misconceptions are cleared up. One man showed us a lot of Arabic script, and even though he thought he wasn't artistic, he still got a lot of pleasure from the session, as did quite a few of the others.
Sunday morning was a non-event, so we all made things ourselves and experimented with new materials.
Sunday afternoon started slowly, but eventually we had at least ten participants. They were very happy to see us again, and we had a good time making clay tablets, small castles, writing in arabic script and talking about Iranian culture. It will be almost a month before we see them again so we hope their enthusiasm stays.
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