Lourdes going to Europe - Happy Solstice!

 Lourdes leaves next week to see our great-gand-daughter Maria and her sister Eden for the first time in Dornach, near Basel, Switzerland.  She will also go to Berlin and Istanbul.  I'm staying behind and renovating our 'Estrella de Sauce' educational center here in Sauce.  Happy Solstice to all!

Ye Olde Wooden Fort Gets New Conscripts

 Our friend Olga, an ex-Waldorf parent, gave us this beautiful wooden fort with 24 wooden soldiers that had been used by her now grown up children. That was 8 years ago and it has been a favorite plaything with our kindergarten-age children.  It has recently been showing signs of wear and tear from the vigorous play of the children and attacks from voracious wood-eating termites here in the Amazon jungle region of Peru.  I repaired one of the damaged towers and the rotten floor, but what to do about the garrison of soldiers that had mysteriously been reduced from 24 to 5?

I decided to make new soldiers on my wood-lathe.

Here I am turning the bodies of the new personnel:

I also turned shields on the lathe, made arms and a carved sword.  Here are the first soldiers of the emerging battalion:

Gotta always include a leftie, right?

Khuyay Waldorf School in Tarapoto

 We are glad that the new Waldorf school called Khuyay (love in the Quechua language) has just re-opened for the southern hemisphere school year in Tarapoto. a city in the northern jungle of Peru, after being largely closed down during the Covid crisis.  We have built an octagonal Kindergarten structure which I have helped to finish by installing two solar-powered fans in the roof to keep it cool, making wooden play blocks and a special cabinet for watercolor paintings to dry.  Right now we have five teachers and 38 children but more parents are applying so hopefully soon we will have more students.

We finish our southern hemisphere summer program

 In the past we have had up to 100 children for our 'summer camp' but this year, due to Covid restrictions we were only able to accept 25 children and youth.  I taught English to two teenagers who thnkfully were keen to learn.  We also advanced in table-tennis skills.

Lourdes and one helper had the younger children learning english songs, doing arts and crafts as well as academic subjects.  We finished our 8-week program with a celebration in which each child received gifts and good things to eat and drink.

Our regular program will resume in March.

Classroom furniture

 

One way of looking at Waldorf education is to consider the right and left hemispheres of the brain in the developing child.  Arts and crafts are right brain activities which tend to to balance the tendency to over-emphasize academic left brain learning in modern education.  Since the beginnings of Waldorf education over a century ago, grade school age children have been doing water color painting with high quality plant-based paints.  To let the paintings dry on their individual wooden boards a special cabinet with a drawer above for paper, brushes and paint has been designed and a variation of this classroom furniture is to be found in most of the 1000 plus Waldorf schools throughout the world.

I just completed this one for the Khuyay ('love' in the Quechua language) Waldorf School in the city of Tarapoto, Peru which is just now finishing a new kindergarten structure set in lush tropical grounds.

I dyed the wood with diluted Stockmar paint and finished up with 3 coats of water-base varnish.

Jungle Ping-Pong

PHOTO:  ZAIR SILVA
 

I just put together this ping-pong table made from 3 sheets of 3/4 inch (18mm) plywood at the back of our Sauce headquarters of Estrella de Sauce, a Waldorf education community outreach program.  Here are Gabriel and Bruno, 2 grandsons visiting from Lima, trying out the table for the first time.  The top will get 2 more coats of green paint ready for when we begin our southern hemisphere 'summer camp', known as 'vacaciones utiles' (useful vacations) here, on January 17th.  The old geezer is me, Martin Stevens, your humble blog author and wood butcher. Game, set and match!

Photo below added

January 19

Photo below added Feb 20

Merry Christmas from the jungle of Peru!

 Despite a year with various challenges we have been able to keep our Estrella de Sauce Waldorf community outreach program going with two groups of children and our grandmother's weekly gathering.

Today we had our end of year celebration for the children who received good things to eat and drink and various gifts along with live Christmas music, games and a revision of all the songs and poems in English they have been learning throughout the year.

Thanks to all who have helped us keep this program in Sauce and the new Tarapoto Waldorf school Khuyay (love in the Quechua language) going and flourishing during this difficult time on planet Earth.

We send out heartfelt good wishes for the Solstice, Christmas,Yuletide, Hanukkah, New Year and all other seasonal festivities to all our family and friends.  Do please come see us!