Playing games

This week in the blog, I want to tell you about a project that is run in the local community that I have attended each week - brinquedoteca. This is the Portuguese word for toy and the club is open to children from the local area to come and play games. 

Over the past few weeks, I have enjoyed being a part of this. The best way of visualising the club is to think of 'No Breakfast Club' at West Leigh. However, there are quite a few differences:

For the children attending this project, it enables them to learn how to play board games - an opportunity which is less common at their homes than it would be in the UK. They particularly enjoy traditional games like dominos, making a jigsaw, but love the opportunity to draw and create artwork. They also have the chance to play new games which, even for me, has been great fun. For these children, having the chance to play different games allows them the opportunity to learn new skills such as taking turns fairly, counting, and developing thinking skills in some of the more complex games. Without this club, the possibility of developing these vital skills would be much less. 

At the end of the session, the children have the option of borrowing a game from the club but they must be responsible with them. The pieces are checked and recorded when they take the game and when they return it. If they demonstrate that they can be trusted to look after it, they will be able to borrow another game if they wish. Such a simple idea is so good to see in action as it allows children who don't have as much the chance to play more.

I've even been influenced by the games at the club and am looking forward to getting some of the games when I return to the UK. 

Ligretto: one of the games that I have enjoyed.

Of course, not everyone knows how to play every game...especially if they are very young! This amused me on a visit to the streets on Wednesday evening.  A little boy wanted to play a game and we chose a travel version of Connect 4 to play. When we began playing, I realised that he didn't play by the 'normal' rules but instead it seemed to be a race to put all the counters into the frame. I lost as he used a tactic of holding and blocking my hand when I tried to put my counters in. We may not have been using the traditional rules but he was enjoying the game and that was the most important thing.

Children playing and drawing during a street visit

This week, we also visited three homes in the poorer areas of Recife again and these visits were really encouraging. Whilst there, we played with balloons, a little boy decided to throw the toy money he was given out the window into the river below (I hope he doesn't do that with real money), and we learned about how one mother works making and selling chips on the street to help support her family. Each of the families that we visited were given some food items (including oil, rice, crackers, pasta) and each famiily was really grateful to receive these.

I hope that you have been enjoying reading this blog and I have been encouraged to know that many people have seen it. In actual fact, I have been rather surprised. The internet makes communicating with a vast audience so easy and therefore, I have been very careful to chose my words thoughtfully especially when I know that my blog has been read in the UK, Brazil, USA, France, Spain, Ireland, Australia, Venezuela, Philippines, Ukraine, Germany, Italy and China!

A few less common things have also happened this week:

My wife had her nails painted by one of the children on the streets 

I had one nail painted when the girls were learning about makeup at their English class. They wanted to paint them all but I didn't feel that I suited the bright pink colour they had chosen! I hope the photo that was taken never appears on the internet!

I told a story in English to a class of girls (aged 10-14) who don't speak English! I had a translator but I think they enjoyed my overacting in the English version.

Until next time, tchau!