Saturday, May 23, 10.00pm, S's dining table ....the kiss of a child

A is such an expressive lovely child. She likes to curl her fingers , wave her arms and growl like an angry tiger. She is very good at it. She often plays with her face, making her eyes big, and hopping. She thinks arepas and black beans are as good as chocolate. I am almost in agreement with her. She's extremely well-behaved and when she cries it is brief and quiet. We have taken to each other and she grabs my hand when we walk, pulls me to play when I can't understand her Spanish and tonight gave me a kiss goodnight.



12.30ish am ....the world's most amazing party

The world's most amazing party is going on downstairs, outside, enveloping the whole neighbourhood. These Caracenos must be used to noise. There is always traffic noise, dogs barking, crickets and now what sounds like live music with sing-along. I canot express how loud it is - not in a sheer decible way but in the clarity and breadth of the sound. And I have my earplugs in.... I don't see how I'm going to sleep tonight.

I've just finished watching Charlie and the Chocolate Factory - the Tim Burton version. It is wonderful - this crazy mishmash of movies styles, from English 1970s teleseries to 1980s perkiness to Burton's own classic fantastical scenes.

I'm already mosquito bitten and have the lightest touch of diarrhea. It has been a slow day recovering from the excess of last night. (The macarena is playing now). But last night is yet to come. I have left S, A and I eating arepas near Plaza Venezuela...

After satiating ourselves on arepas and fruit juice (mine was freshly squeezed passionfruit juice), S, A and I made our way back onto the subway to get to the Museo de Bellas Artes. We walked through its green and stone-pathed park with statues, sculptures and a waterless fountain, with works made by famous Venezuelan artists. A insisted on carrying a magazine with her as we walked but tried to get her mother to hold it for her. S refused. A rolled the magazine up and stuck it in her pants.


(Jardin Belles Artes)

The museum displayed contemporary art and had a great exhibit of Gego's (Gertrude Goldschmidt) wire sculptures, some hanging from the ceiling in sprawling shapes formed from gridwork. One work was a room full of such shapes - covering the walls like ivy and dropping from the ceiling. You could look into the room from doors on either side. There was also an exhibition on military dictator Cipriano Castro, showing photos and artefacts from his ruling years in the first years of the 1900s.

A got upset for the first time since I've been here. She wanted to go to the science museum, which she loves. She was bored and tired from all the art S and I inflicted upon her. One work consisting of yellow plastic tubes hanging in a big square cheered her up. She and I played in the tubes, me hunting her while tangling myself up. It was a great hands-on piece of art.

(tube play)

After leaving the fine arts museum we headed to a new home for some of the Galeria de Arte Nacional collection, but much of the grand old building was empty. We saw only a collection of religious art by famous Italian and Spanish painters.

Finally we ended up at the Museo de Arte Contemporaneo, which A was not happy about. We didn't have much time before closing so only was able to view the Oscar Niemeyer exhibit. This modernist architect designed the museum and many galleries and buildings in Brazilia and other Latin American cities. Most of his work is quite dated and, to me, ugly (functional 1950s-1970s structures) but several museums were designed to look rather like spaceships. These buildings are cool, at least in the photographs. We finished up at the museum in the kid's area, scrawling on a wall-length whiteboard and making sculptures out of large thin black and white foam grooved and curved shapes. This took some skill. It was hard to get the shapes to balance one I began fitting them together. Clearly I am not a sculptor.