On Saturday May 24th, we held our long anticipated art show in Cerrik. After all our worries about no one coming, about not getting any artwork, after having to buy all the prizes and not being able to display the artwork properly, we had a very successful art show.
On Thursday we had gone around to all the schools and collected much more artwork than we thought we would. In the afternoon we went to the cinema to set up what we had. We discovered that setting up the artwork against the back of the chairs was not going to work. We than thought we could tape the artwork on the walls, however this would have required a lot of tape which we did not have and we did not want to put tape on everyone’s art. We found these wire things that we decided to hang yarn between and then use clothespins to put the artwork up. Yes, it was a little ghetto but it worked out great. It took us about 4 tries restringing the yarn before we were happy with the level of the artwork and the closeness to the wall.
Also the week before we found out that our judges, the school principals, teachers and some representatives from the municipality would most likely not be able to make it to the event on Saturday. We decided to take the artwork individually to their respective judges and ask them to pick out their favorites. This actually worked out fairly well and we were able to decide on how we wanted to arrange the prize categories after getting their decisions. We decided to give out one first prize and two honorable mentions for every category. We had prizes and certificates made based on this and then were surprised Saturday morning when the municipality dropped off some more prizes for us to give. It was a very nice surprise.
Another nice surprise on Saturday was walking to the cinema to find a huge group of students waiting outside the doors. They were there but they were there hours early!! We had to finish setting up and finish writing names on certificates before opening the doors! We managed to finish most and then the doors were open and the children came running in and sat down. They obviously had no concept of coming, looking, leaving, and returning for prizes. Well what were we to do with all of them until the prize ceremony? We put on some music and then we just finished getting our stuff together. We had forgotten to write out some speeches in Albania but luckily we had a very fluent English and Albanian speaker there to help us out. We ended up doing the prize ceremony an hour after the doors had been opened and an hour and a half earlier than we had planned on doing it.
The kids loved their certificates and the ones who got prizes were very happy. We took one picture with all the participation award winners. Then we did individuals with the honorable mentions and 1st place winners. When we finished and told them “Thanks for coming!” they all ran out of the cinema tearing the artwork with them! AHHH!!! Most of it was saved but we couldn’t believe it! We all cleaned up and just kept looking at each other going “It’s done!!” None of us could believe how well it went. Yes there were things that could have been done better but overall it was a success.
Now that the art show is over PST is pretty much done in my book but really there are 3 weeks left. The next 3 weeks will go by so fast though so I’m very excited. I hope that everyone back home is getting ready for summer break (if you’re not already on it) and I can’t wait to hear from you guys!
Leslie
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