I’m about to head out to meet up with some fellow orchestral musicians, but I thought I’d share this poster that my group of adolescents completed last Saturday. With the idea of decorating one wall of our meeting space (shared with two our Project Chiclayo educational session groups), 18 teens between the ages of 12 and 15 collaborated on making this poster by first making the words for the inspirational quote and then making background images, patterns and and decorations on which to glue the cut out letters.

Seeing as the poster was in dozens of pieces when the session ended (it was glued together with the help of two participants who stayed after), few of these teenage artists have seen the beautiful results of their teamwork, although several did admire it during the Thursday English homework help session/workshop. At tomorrow morning’s session they will all see it at last, and I hope the others who use the space will appreciate the hard work and creativity put into making it.

The quote is by János Arany (a Hungarian writer and poet) and the teens chose it from a selection of quotes about dreams. We did so after we finished reading a book which belongs to the newest Project Chiclayo program, a rotating library called “La Cometa Lectora” (“The Reading Kite”), currently operating out of a suitcase during its rotations to various educational sessions with children. So far none of the youth groups have had an official visit from “La Cometa” (although some have accompanied their younger siblings in their sessions), so to give them some introductory access to the books, I brought in “La vida vuela” (“Life flys”).

This story was published last year by Peruvian María-Chloé Garrido-Lecca while she was in her last year of high school (the age equivalent of Grade 11 in Canada); it is about a boy who always dreamed of learning how to fly, decided to become a pilot and ended up becoming a hot air balloon pilot, but indeed reached his dream of learning to fly. The guys in particular seemed to enjoy the story, but it served as a great discussion starter about the dreams of the Project Chiclayo youth; dream careers mentioned included architect, fly attendant, doctor, cosmetologist, teacher, nurse, restaurant owner and even Peruvian Air Force pilot, although many are uncertain. We also discussed the author and the challenges she must have faced to publish a book at such a young age and the goals, planning, follow-through and determination needed to make her dream of publishing a book a reality.

It didn’t surprise me that the teens chose this quote from the many I took to the session as several are falling in love for the first time. “En los sueños y en el amor no existen imposibilidades” translates as: “In dreams and in love there are no impossibilities.” And “T.K.M.” is short for “Te Quiero Mucho”, meaning “I love you a lot”.

Happy Friday!