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When we first came into the room we (Alex…my wonderful volunteer and trainee…and I) found it crowded with stuff and junk…tables and chairs filling the center of the room. I was shocked and quite disturbed…how the heck was I going to do body mapping with 20 women in this small and crowded space? There were two adjoining offices and people were meeting in both of them, talking loudly…so the space was noisy. We managed to get some of the staff to clear out a bunch of the stuff around the sides of the room…and then waited for the grandmothers to arrive.
The grandmothers came into the room slowly and they were late. There were supposed to be 20 of them, but luckily only thirteen showed up. They were big. Previously I had worked with grandmothers in Zimbabwe who were petite and very limber…jumping up and down, playing and rolling on the floor etc. These gogos were huge and slow.
We started with introductions…I asked them to say their name and then to say something about themselves…I was surprised that they all shared facts about their poor health, and that was all.
“I am Rebecca. I have had problems like back ache and arthritis. I can’t see well and I am always coughing.”
“I am Elizabeth. I don’t have many complaints except that my husband had a stroke four years ago and he can’t speak and hear. I am his caretaker.”
“I am Mavis. After I lost my 2 sons I got shortness of breath. From stress.”
“I am Constance, I had eight children and seven of them died. I have diabetes, ulcers and chronic cough.”
“I am Angelina. I have high blood pressure, heart problems, arthritis, back pain and I can’t see.”
I thought to myself, “These women are a wreck. How am I going to do body maps with them? They can’t even move.”
We started with a warm up exercise where I asked them to draw a happy time from their childhood and after that, a difficult or challenging time. Mavis said, “We didn’t have difficult times in our childhood. It all started later.” I asked them to still draw any difficult moment from childhood, and as it turned out one had been beaten by the mother, another by the father, another by the teacher. Three of them drew the death of their husbands (not exactly a childhood memory, but OK). Elizabeth drew her brother at age 4 (as the difficult time) and then she broke down sobbing as she was sharing her memories about him. Seems that he disappeared at age 4 and then re-surfaced many years later and died soon afterwards. Angelina, the one on crutches who can’t see, was sitting next to me and drawing very slowly and carefully in one small area of her paper. I suspected that she was senile or something comparable. She drew with a yellow marker and a few crayons and her drawing resembled that of a four year old…nothing recognizable. When the women were sharing the stories behind their art work, she also shared, which really surprised me. She said, “this is my mother and father who I loved so much.” It was extremely touching.
Then we had tea and the women had enormous slabs of white bread covered with a thick coating of margarine and pieces of a terrible looking bologna type of meat…very pink.
We started the body maps…there was only room for ten of them on the floor and the others sat (they couldn’t manage to bend down anyway) and worked on small projects. I drew the outline of one of the women as a demonstration and then they drew each other. We started with painting a symbol for future dreams and then another symbol for the past…where they came from. They painted around the outline of their body in a color that made them feel strong, and then I noticed that one of them had painted in her breasts, so I asked them all to paint “your big beautiful breasts.” They all painted tiny, miniscule breasts which I still don’t understand. Then it was time for lunch and they were gone. After lunch we danced to Oliver Mtuzduki (Zimbabwean)…very lovely, and then I had them begin to paint inside their body. They were instructed to paint points of courage. And then 2:30…time to leave to pick up their grandchildren from school.
One of them said, ”This was my happiest day. I wish that we could do this every day.”
Another said, “We are so thankful to you for giving us the chance to do something that we have never done before,”
One of the women said to me earlier, “This is my first time.” I said, “Doing what?” And she responded, “I have never painted before. I never held a paintbrush.” That really surprised me. I guess that she was 70 years old, and as it turned out, most of them had never painted before. One of them held up a marker, inches in front of her face, and turned it around and upside down, examining it. Later I realized that she had never held a marker before.
Throughout the day there were people walking in and out of the room…two groups of tourists showed up for a tour of the premises (there is a remarkable orphanage on site)…constant interruptions. That made me fairly crazy. Logistically it was impossible. I vowed to myself to only lead workshops in the future that are well organized well…quite unrealistic, as long as I stay in Africa.