As I told you about a month ago, my wife quit her teaching job this year. It was a very hard decision for her because she loves teaching and she loved the kids at the school she was working in. We worked together on a good-bye project and now we are back to work on her next.

She and one of her colleagues decided to start their own escuelita, a place where kids can get a more individualized education, without the constraints of school district’s orders or administrative red-tape. They got a place where this home-school style will work permanently, but it needs some significant fixing.

In the meantime, they will operate at my wife’s colleague’s place, which also (like most educator’s homes) needed some fixing.

We got some used tables and chairs. Some plastic chairs needed some sanding and after more than 25 years they look good again.

Fully renovated kiddy plastic chair

Partly renovated kiddy table. It has a crack that we'll try to cover with contact paper.

Today, we bought some paint and started making this place a new warm home for the kids who will be getting ready to succeed at school.

There were some big cracks on the walls. I am not a mason, by any means and we did not have to right tools and materials, but we did what we could with what we had.

They did the water painting,

and I took the oil painting, which was basically two metal doors that had a lot of rust and lumps of old paint that had to be removed before I could add a new coat of paint.

Ironically, this house looks like a prison from outside with these huge metal doors. It is actually normal for most houses in Venezuela to have this rustic and excessive security measures.

This is how the living room looks now. One of the kids was celebrating his birthday, so we told him that that repair/painting was our birthday present for him 😂

There are still a bunch of little holes that we'll cover with a different material and with a third coat of paint it should look better, but for now let's call it a change for the better.

We were exhausted and finished by dusk. There is still a lot of details that will be finished during the week. The house is probably a hundred years old and has been in disrepair for a while, so some things we cannot possibly fix permanently, at least for now.

We’ll show the progress of the final decoration and furnishing soon.
My wife and her friend are very excited at the prospects of starting their own education project and business. It will start as summer school for kids who want to read and write well, but the idea is to turn it into a fun place that will provide kids with the tools to fill the voids of formal schooling and help them shine academically and socially.

@manujune helped too. She will be posting about her part of the work: the school logo. She did a great job, but I'll let her show and tell you all.

Thanks for stopping by. Have a great week