Sugar Skulls

Today was my last day for the annual cultural teachers training camp.
Last year I taught just cane dancing. This year I was way so happy to be asked to teach some visual art classes in addition to the belly dancing.
The teachers who take this training camp are all wide open and receptive to other cultures (ok one of the reasons they come). I wish more area teachers would come
I know the director would like for more teachers to come.
Its fun, its wonderful, its a load of in-service credits, something teachers really need!
This week I taught bark painting, and henna, and andikra cloth decorating.
Today’s class was decorating the sugar skulls. I used plaster in the molds, and they turned out so great.
One of the other dance instructors came in and she is Mexican. So she was telling us how her grandmother would make sugar skulls, and how they would go have a picnic at the grave sites. It was great. I felt a bit like a fraud (this was all me—she didn’t once do anything to make me feel that way). Here’s this woman who grew up in this culture taking my class, and I’m teaching it because I LOVE making decorated skulls, and I love the whole concept of honoring people from our past.
All the teachers had fun with today’s class. I think they had more fun with today’s class than any of the other ones because it taxed their artistic skills the least.