Hi,

Here is the first of 4 pictures we took in a school during our Art in All of Us (www.artinallofus.org) visit in Cote D'Ivoire.

We travel from Bamako (Mali) to Abidjan by flight because of the tense security situation in Cote d’Ivoire. It is our first flight since we left Sénégal…after approx. 20000km.... what a contrast with the travels by bush-taxi!
The arrival at Abidjan airport is a quite brutal: the customs-officers aren´t that nice and literally remind us that the country is at war, and ask why on earth are we visiting their country?
We are gently welcomed by Ali, at whose place we stay for a couple of days. We profit from his knowledge to understand, or at least try to learn a bit more on the Ivorian conflict… indeed the information received from western medias is as usual very poor and bad.
The school we are working with is located in Anyama, a district outside Abidjan. It is a very nice primary school, and which kids are very lively and communicative! We arrive around 8 in the morning, just at the beginning of the traditional Monday flag ceremony.
The whole school gathers in the schoolyard, and a small group of children sings the national anthem while a privileged pupil has the heavy duty of hoisting the flag at the same rhythm and pace as the national anthem. It is quite funny to see the variations in hoisting the flag, as the kid realizes he is going too fast or too slow compared to the anthem!
Our class has about 40 children. We divide it in two groups : the first one goes outside with Anthony for the photography session, while I work on the drawings and poetry with the others. As soon as they finish their work, we interchange and I go out with my group of students… they reveal themselves as wild lions in front of the objective!!! … just check the second picture on our gallery (the only picture in colours) to get an idea of their enthusiasm with the pictures! Even though the photographic activity is always the most successful, it is the first time I witness such an enthusiasm and fever for photographs!
The kids are so happy that they don’t want us to leave anymore! They are really cute.
The pictures we take of them are among the best ones, and our online gallery for Cote d´Ivoire is also one of our favourites. [link]

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