One day I went to hang out with the boys on their playground, and Gildo came and sat on my lap. He drew the letters of the alphabet in the dirt for me one at a time, very slowly. After he drew each one he'd look up at me to see if it was right or not. Most of the time he was, but sometimes he skipped a letter or didn't draw it quite right. It was very endearing, but at the same time I was kind of surprised that a 10 year old didn't know the alphabet yet.
After he drew it in the dirt, he made the letters out of pieces of grass. After that he fell asleep for a few minutes while I watched the other boys play. It was amazing how much these kids just wanted some attention. Even more amazing was how much we could communicate, and how much time we could spend together, with me knowing only a couple words of Portuguese and Makua, and the children knowing only a few words of English.
I got to hang out with Gildo at arts camp too. I'll write more about camp later on, but for now here's a video of Gildo playing Hot Cross Buns on the recorder. He was pretty good at it, too! This is after about an hour instruction total in a group of maybe 15 kids, with NO translator! So, considering all that, he plays really well!
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