Today, I was at the ‘Boys Group’ with a new colleague who suggested that boys could water-paint their faces. It went really well, boys, mostly 10-year-olds and younger, managed to help themselves, so we were just facilitating and making sure there would be no harm. I made some tea that boys mostly spilled while trying to pour it into their cups.

The boys had fun and the place was really wet, when Marcel (6), with yellow lion-features painted on his face by Roman (10) and followed by Samuel (6) and Norbert (7), roared at me and with a jump he made a half-hug half-bite on my leg, that is, my black trousers. As the paint was still wet, I saw a yellow imprint on my thigh and I had to go and wash it immediately. Within a few seconds, along with the fact that we had only 15 minutes left for the activities and the Club had to be cleaned, the mood changed. The boys calmed down, apologised for dirtying my trousers, and hastily helped to clean and dry the Club. At least some did. Samuel was afraid of coming home painted, so he washed his face furiously and after a few minutes he left the Club without helping the others. (Extract from fieldnotes, June 2009)