Monday, May28

We are getting so close to the end of our journey here and the end of the project. We started the morning by continuing to work on our own parts of the project and then doing a group discussion in the afternoon to get feedback from everyone else and see how we can improve and present things more cohesively. After doing the group discussion and laying out everyone’s work on the floor it finally felt like every aspect of the project is coming together to create a well-integrated design solution for El-Cocal. It was really interesting for me to see how the children’s education/branding team work’s coordinate with the work from the pilot/infrastructure group. The rest of the day was all about using our design tools,  taking the advice from everyone, making wise decisions and hoping that we will all finish everything on time for our final presentation on Wednesday. At this point, I was thinking about what if we had more time to spend on the project and in the community.What would be different and how would everything be like? From the beginning of this process, I was thinking of the last week of the project and how things would work out without knowing that work is getting done and the project is growing little by little every day. We all got so tired at the end of the night but some of us were awake until one or two hours past midnight.

Monday, May 28

We are getting so close to the end of our journey here and the end of the project. We started the morning by continuing to work on our own part of the project and then doing a group discussion in the afternoon to get feedback from everyone else and see how we can improve and present things more cohesively. After doing the group discussion and laying out everyone’s work on the floor It finally felt like every aspect of the project is coming together to create a well-integrated design solution for El-Cocal. It was really interesting for me to see how the children’s education /branding team work’s coordinate with the work from the pilot/infrastructure group. The rest of the day was all about using our design tools, taking the advice from everyone, making wise decisions and hoping that we will all finish everything on time for our final presentation on Wednesday. At this point, I was thinking what if we had more time to spend on the project and in the community. What would be different and how would everything be like? From the beginning of this process, I was thinking of the last week of the project and how things would work without knowing that things are working little by little every day. We all got so tired at night but some of us were awake until one or two hours past midnight.

Yesterday we went to see the end of El Cocal with taxi and then walk back to get a sense of what’s going on the far end of this little community. El Cocal seemed to get nicer and nicer as we got far away from the first residence. With wider field and tall chaotic trees almost everywhere, It almost felt like that the landscape is trying to make me ignore the fact that there is still garbage hanging around as well. It was interesting to hear from Julius that there is no actual land ownership so maybe right now I can just go there and find a perfect spot that suits me and say this is mine from now on. As far as I know, this is one of the easiest ways to “buy” land without paying for it. During the walk back I noticed that the concept of home is truly relevant to some of these families. The picture of a kind of family lifestyle, with chickens, dogs, birds following each other in the backyard and everyone sitting under a tiny roof with clothes being hanged to dry off anywhere possible, was so fascinating to me.    

After observing the neighborhood and walking for about thirty-five minutes or so, we got to see the Festival Del Papalote or in other words the Kite Festival. The festival was full of parents, kids, dogs, and teachers and a bunch of retailers selling so many cool stuff. All of these along with the perfect beach to dip your feet in created a complete and very interactive atmosphere for everyone to experience. Even though the festival was meant to be for kids specifically by having a clown and a stage engaging them with various activities, I felt like more than kids it’s the grown-ups who are enjoying the festival. I captured some of these kids playing on the beach, jumping on the trampoline and a lot of them just running around the festival. I thought some activates that were assigned seemed to work well and some, not that much. It was as an example quit obvious that kids loved playing the engaging game of who bites more of the apple were at the end they all held hand to help each other bite more.

They also assigned a game for us and  Zeinab won and walked so proudly away from the whole situation. After a long day, we came back to the hostel and spent the afternoon to finally get together and gather some possible ideas for our project.