Esperanza

Just wanted to take this space to shout and cheer and tell you how excited I am about what happened in our country two days ago! What follows is an email I wrote in response to a celebratory email of a good friend...

Yes!! What a great day it was yesterday and continues to be today! I feel like we have been waiting so long for someone to be president who actually cares about humanity and is not only interested in all that ugly greed, materialism and power.
As for election action and interest, yes Katie! People down here were so intrigued by what would happen. Everyone wanted to know who was most like the left-wing politicians of ES. They wanted to know who would be the peoples president. They were also curious about candidates views on immigrations, freetrade agreements etc. Salvadorans, and many people here in Central America, know that US decisions have huge impacts on their lives. Sometimes I think we tend to forget just how much other nations rely on ours. When we have corrupt policies/acts with corrupt governments, the people (more specificly the poor) are unbelievably exploited and they are the ones who suffer.

Not only does Barrack have a huge responsibility now, but if we really want to see this world change we have many responsibilities as well. January 20th, he will start his term as our president, and hopefully the actions he takes from his first day in office will start us on track towards change. But, like our mothers always taught us when we were little, we should act responsibly and with kindness towards human beings and the earth. So, lets be aware of the actions we take and think about the possible effects they may have on others and the environment.
You people are good and wholesome and straight talkin'.
I miss you tons and hope you are well and happy and healthy and positive...
Love you! And HUGE HUGE hugs!!!
xxoo
Laura




The entry that follows is the real blog update I wrote about in my email, I just wanted to share my excitement before diving into whats going on down here.

comfort is not conducive to change

So much has happened since the last time I wrote. So, I have procrastinated updating this blog due to the weight of the daunting task of briefing you all on the craziness (and wonderfulness) that has become my life and projects, while also trying to keep things interesting and poetic.
So, in order not to overwhelm any of us, I will try to make this as direct and sweet as possible. Deep breath!
The last time I wrote was on my trip home in August (wow, I have truly fallen behind)! I posted a blog just after I returned to El Salvador about renewing my contract with ArtCorps and about all the lovely and not so lovely things I have been learning this year. I actually wrote very little about projects and activities that have come up and have shared even less self reflection. So, I will aim to make up for that now.
If I had to squeeze my general self reflection into two sentences, since we are keeping this short and sweet, they would be the two that follow. While this country is a land of possibilities for the social activist and artist,in the sense that there are so many possibilities for facilitating change and developing initiatives, there is also something to be said for simplicity and pure dedication of oneself to one or two unique initiatives. I have come to the realization that I need to learn to say no without feeling guilty. I also need to to learn to identify a real solid idea in order to be able to mold and feed it until it becomes one strong reality rather than multiple realities that are not necessarily tied to each other in the direction of permanent change.
I am not ashamed to say that I can be a bit of an overachiever at times when it comes to work. For this reason I am here on the 3rd of November with various projects pending and only a month and 13 days to go until I return home and try to start fresh next year Fortunately apart from being idealistic people, overachievers can also be dedicated people who do not like to leave loose ends untied. This may mean various nights of not sleeping, breaking even further away from a normal work schedule and driving myself a bit nuts in the process, but hopefully it will also mean that I will leave concrete and finished murals, manuals, banners, initiatives and impressions in the places where the first brushstroke hit the cement, paper , or what have you.
As for the various projects and initiatives and the challenges we have faced while executing them, I will create a list below momentarily. However, first it is only honest for me to mention here the amount of floundering, frustration and reflection that have been involved in this whole process. Being a first year ArtCorps artist working in her first NGO, I receive these realities as learning experiences and a base on which to build future initiatives as well as to analyze and continue projects that are currently pilot runs or abstract energies twirling around realities.
I would never hope to leave El Salvador after a year of only dipping my feet in the water to produce minor ripples that are soon to be calmed and forgotten. There is so much left to move and create that I receive with immense gratitude the chance to learn from my mistakes and hope that they help me form concrete ideas that lead the way for future work and that these ripples turn into curling waves that give way to movement and real change.
You may remember me talking a while back about an environmental mural initiative in the local Sacacoyo high school. This was a project that I was hoping to execute swiftly and relatively promptly. The objective was to get to know a few more of the youth in town and also make connections within the high school with teachers etc. in order to be supported in our work amongst the youth. While I met a group of wonderful and energetic kids, only one of them has incorporated into the youth group. This is not to say that it wasn’t worth it, not at all, because she has now become one of FUNDAHMER’s scholarship students. But I do continue to be frustrated with the time restraints, and accessibility to the students/faculty.
Some of this frustration continues to come from the fact that I am not allowed to leave the house by myself in order to run over and paint when the time avails itself to me, without feeling like I am burdening the people I live with to chaperone me. Another frustration comes from the professor who was so willing to “collaborate” on the first day, but now somehow magically disappears every time I try to get the work going again. Regardless, Rene, a young friend of mine who invited me to participate in the first place has been a great help in tracking down this illusive teacher and hopefully there will be a final product somewhere in the very near future.
Another environmental mural you may remember me speaking of is the one we began designing for the contaminated river near by where I used to live in Las Naranjeras. We started this project in conjunction with a clean up, and repaired walls and “pilas”/wash basins in order to be able to spread our colorful message in paint soon there after. But like many instances the obstacles have been prevalent and somewhat inevitable.
On various occasions, we painted base coats of white paint on which we hoped to start our mural designs. All of these efforts were relentlessly washed away by the heavy, HEAVY rains of the Salvadoran wet season. We had also asked the local mayor to support us by donating trash bins and trash pick up service weekly in efforts to keep the river and area clean. While they responded fondly to the idea in person, they never actually followed through on their word. We continued the effort unsupported. And continue to seek other sources of support.
While the environmental objectives of this initiative motivate us on the surface, there is another profound objective motivating us from within. We also hope that this mural initiative will be visual proof of the positive change the community is working towards. The community members of the CEB (Ecclesiastically based community) that I collaborate with have often been regarded as communists, terrorists, and guerillas for the simple fact that they are an organized community. They have been ready for years to shed this stereotype. The FMLN, the leftist political party that is currently campaigning for the elections that will take place in March of next year, are often a topic of discussion at their meetings, however, they are certainly not the sole defining characteristic of this passionate community.
While the commitment to transformation is still present, we have decided that the best thing to do with the group of youth is to wait out the rain and as it lets up, start working on a mural inside the youth center. During this waiting period, our initial work by the river has been vandalized with political propaganda. There is red spray paint all over EVERYthing, even places that we had not planned on painting have been vandalized. The most upsetting thing is that this is what everybody expected from the community, and it supports a false opinion of those who regard the community in the fashion mentioned above. We are currently trying to figure out how best to execute damage control.


The rainy season is finally starting to taper off, so we hope to get the youth together for 2 full days of painting in order to get the mural up before I leave in December. A current fear is that by returning to paint the initial design we could potentially start up a painted tug of war in which every time we start to paint, the graffiti artists will return to make sure that their mark is also present. The hope is that once people see the murals they will respect them and regard them as art and not just another wall for the “pinta pega campaña” which translates to the paint and glue campaign. If you have any suggestions, PLEASE feel free to share them. We are certainly open.
As for the mural inside the youth center, the idea is to illustrate the values of the group so that they will always be visually present as a reminder of what makes the strong base for working as a team. We have already washed and prepped the wall and started to paint the image with acrylic wash. Next Saturday we will have a full day of painting, and hopefully another before the 23rd of November, when the group of Swedish funders come to have their meetings in the center. Values such as respect, peace, community, leadership, etc. will be illustrated through a painted, large scale Salvadoran landscape of images that symbolize each value. We will continue to invent and manipulate the images during the painting process in order to communicate clearly the values that serve as roots for this youth group.
Here are a few of the youth prepping the wall inside the youth center for the values mural...



While these various initiatives are certainly consuming of time and energy, there is yet another initiative that continues to occupy my focus. This initiative is called the “Roque Dalton” school and diploma program for arts and culture facilitators, which we currently run out of the youth center in Sacacoyo. Back in January, we wrote a proposal for the project to be funded by New England Biolabs Foundation, which is the same foundation which funds ArtCorps.
With their support, we were able to get this program running and have been piloting the initiative since August 24th. The general objective is to form a group of youth leaders from various communities, who will promote art and culture within their CEB, and to help the participants develop the ability to manage, reproduce and use popular education in their push for transformation and liberation.
As mentioned before, this is a pilot program. Many reflections and analyses are the base from which the program will hopefully evolve and improve in the years to come. At the end of the year, there will be an arts and culture celebration to share the fruits of our labors with the communities and the rest of the FUNDAHMER staff. The celebration will demonstrate the artistic accumulation of skills, knowledge and intangible changes that have taken place within each individual over the four months of workshops concentrating on the history of art within the CEB’s and popular education, visual and therapeutic arts, theater arts and dance.
Being one of the consistently present figures in the workshops throughout changing facilitators has been very enlightening and my motivating force in deciding to compile a manual of processes, information and techniques that will hopefully support the youth in their facilitation with in their own communities. The manual will describe the procedure of each artistic process (at least how it was generally done during the workshops), with lists of materials used, locations in which to buy them, less costly alternatives, historical information about Roque Dalton (the revolutionary poet after whom the initiative was named), ideas for funding, and popular education techniques which have the potential to help implement change through arts and culture with in the different communities.
The first fruit of this initiative took place on a nocturnal schedule when the youth from Morazán came to stay at FUNDAHMER with me during the nights before the visual arts workshops. Over the course of a few weekends, we collaborated in painting a banner that would be used in a march on the day of the international day for the rural woman in the community in Cacaopera, Morazán.

Apart from this side initiative, I have worked on a banner for the community of Sacacoyo which depicts the Priest whom the community was named after, and words, painted by a participating youth that describe the way they feel about this man who has brought them so much inspiration.
(The painting is behind the band)

Another side project has been the collaboration with other volunteers here at FUNDAHMER to write a volunteer manual that lays out guidelines and expectations for incoming volunteers. And the planning of an interactive clay activity that will take place at the UCA this Wednesday in a celebration that honors the martyrs and victims of El Salvador’s 12 year war.
(Just got back from this activity So I thought I would post some pics. This was a very non-formal activity to get passersby involved and to give and interactive space for honoring the martyrs of Cacaopera, Morazan. There were river rocks, clay and markers with which to express a message of remembrance.)









Last but CERTAINLY not least, the women’s committee continues to produce and analyze their work as well as search for product vendors and alternative marketing schemes. (Any suggestions and offerings of space are always welcome!) Three weeks ago I traveled with a few of the women to an alternative market where natural and organic foods and products are sold. The journey was not only beautiful because I had a chance to interact with the women outside of the community, but I watched them learn about alternative approaches and interact with inspiring people- the venders and promoters of this creative and positive market environment.
The purpose of the trip was to follow up on a proposal written to sell the cards and baskets at the market. We had a chance to converse with a few of the members of the board and the interactions were very promising. They are looking for groups of people to sell products that are new to the market so as not to create competition within the market community. There were neither cards nor baskets. So, we hope that they will invite the women back, and this time to sell. The board review meeting was on the 30th of October and we are waiting patiently to find out the final decision.
In the meantime, the women are incessantly producing cards for the solidarity department at FUNDAHMER that will be exchanged with sister communities over Christmas. Forty cards have also been sent to the US for a trial run with two possible venders in North Carolina. One of them is a group at Furman University called Artglobe, which sells artistic goods in order to support diverse, international groups of people who live in less fortunate conditions and the other is a women’s group who have expressed interest in collaboration.
One of the women the other day expressed her commitment to the process by telling the rest of the group that if they really want change and to make something happen, that they will need to work hard. I have never seen them do anything but that. They have been such an inspiration for my work this year. When I got to Sacacoyo in April of this year, I did not even know that this group of women existed. When they came to me and asked what I was going to teach them I was surprised and excited at their eagerness to learn and grow. As a result, I must say, they have certainly not been the only ones learning. I too have fed on their imagination and support and feel so lucky that they have allowed me to become part of their group.
I will leave El Salvador on the 15th of December, a little more than a month from now, and I can barely believe how quickly the time has gone by. There have been so many moments this year when I have doubted my own capability as an arts facilitator, I have pushed my self so far out of my own comfort zone that I wonder if I will ever be able to return to that tranquil and comfortable person. I also wonder if I really ever want to return to that comfortable person. After all, comfort is almost never conducive to productivity and change. And I know this much. I do not want things to stay the same.


Here are a few more pictures that were taken during the “Roque Dalton” school and diploma program for arts and culture facilitators workshops.

The youth in this photo are learning how to use silkscreen, a method of public art that helps transmit messages on a large scale. The image they are using is of Padre Octavio Ortiz a martyr from the war and also the brother of Anita Ortiz who is a good friend one of the founders of FUNDAHMER The picture was taken during the art therapy and visual arts part of our workshops.



Here are a few of the youth working on potential mural designs for their communities. They were asked to brainstorm change they would like to see in their communities and then create and image accompanied by words that will relay this message on a large scale.








These youth are working on a mosaic bench for their community en "La Tzu-Chi," a region a few bus stops away from Sacacoyo.


This was an excercise that was part of the corporal expression segment of the theater workshops.





Aaaand there has been puppet making...

Journal entry turned artist contract

What follows is a journal entry that I wrote a few days before heading home to visit family and friends towards the end of last month. As I sat, sharing a room with a few friendly, sleeping bats and a beautiful trickle of late afternoon sunlight, this journal entry took a turn for the better. I often like to sit and reflect about the challenges and the triumphs that living and working in a foreign culture bring about. However, on this day, I decided that the reflection was not enough. Commitment to persevere and new promises needed to be written. So after signing and sending in my official contract to continue working with ArtCorps and FUNDAHMER until December 2009, I post this journal entry turned artist contract to share with you all a bit more about what it really means to me, to be an artcorps artist.


Today is Tuesday, tomorrow is Wednesday and Thursday I go home to visit my family for 10 whole days!! I can barely believe that I will be leaving El Salvador to go HOME for this time. I will be away from the community, FUNDAHMER and the hectic schedule and the friendly and not so friendly people who have become my immediate reality. It’s funny, because I know exactly what to expect in terms of seeing my family, but in terms of being home and the feelings it will bring about, I have absolutely no idea what to expect. Robyn says it feel s padded and at times very disconnected. I can already imagine that.
I simply cannot wait to see my family and to love and hug them. It is going to be unreal! But it is also going to be a challenge to explain to them the decision I feel that I have already made. Just reading the second year contract that Suzanne sent me yesterday, made me even more certain about the decision. One of the sections talks about the creative experimentation that is so much a part of having a successful year with ArtCorps. The freedom to experiment creatively is possibly one of the aspects I value the most about the organization. I have learned to adapt new techniques as if they were something I had been using for years and I actually see results!
As with the uncertainty that I have about what it will be like being back to the states, there is also no way of telling how this next year would be. Things are bound to change dramatically; the situation, the projects, me. But I can almost be certain that I will continue to learn and grow in the same profound manner that I have since I arrived in Guatemala on January 2nd of this year.
During this time I have been dreadfully ill, I have been bitten by a million and something mosquitoes, I have been a teacher, a student and an improvised actress, artist and facilitator. I have been hugged, loved, pushed and shoved. I have made friends and hopefully few enemies. I have made leaps, jumps and fallen backwards. But through it all, I have held my own hand. I have been my own motivator, my own critic and my own teacher and friend. My inner monologues have brought me frustration, happiness, sadness and tranquility, while also getting me through some of the toughest challenges.
It would be lying to say that my family and my new and old friends have not helped. They have been such an integral part of the maintenance of my sanity. They support me, challenge me and ask questions that I often forget to ask myself. They help me reflect in ways that my own mind would not independently reflect. They feed me with new materials to read and techniques to try. But, nobody understands me better than me. And if the lessons I have learned about myself over the past 8 months were the only thing I had gotten out of this journey, I might even consider doing it all over again just for that. But, they are not, and I am certainly not finished learning about me, this culture or this line of work.
I woke up this morning under my mosquito net, in the bedroom that I share with a sweet, 16 year old girl named Kenny Yessenia. As I tried to shake off my “spanglish” ridden dreams and snap into full on Spanish mode, I found myself already thinking about the things I needed to organize for the women from the women’s committee who would be arriving within the hour. I ran around rather frantically boiling my “platano” breakfast and getting the coffee going for the women. I gave myself a very quick bucket bath and ran across the street to where I store my materials to get things together for the morning meeting.
To my surprise, for the first, maybe second time since I have been in El Salvador, they arrived early!! Two of the women arrived on the 7:30 bus and I hadn’t been expecting them until 8:00. I left them sitting, chatting on the couch as I continued to prepare.
Teresa (the woman I live with) would not be present for the meeting that we were going to have that day in her home. She had, had to travel to the city to serve as a witness for a family that has been trying for months to get a visa to move to the United States.
So here I was running around, forgetting to remind myself to slow down, when Yanet, a woman from the committee told me I was being something, something which I didn’t quite understand at the time. The word was one that I hadn’t heard before, but I think I understand now what she was trying to tell me. She told me to sit down and have my coffee and my “pan dulce,” so I did.
I caught my breath and as we chatted I began to fully enjoy their company. I began to listen and observe, and the course of the meeting came to me through conversation and reflection. I had already planned out the main points of our meeting, but I had not put them in order, nor figured out exactly how to introduce them. I often find myself with the impulse to teach, because that is what I was trained to do. But these days, I continuously remind myself that I am just as much the student and by sitting in the circle and absorbing the company and sharing the breadth of knowledge and wisdom that we all possess, we will learn much more profoundly together.
So, in this reflective journal entry turned personal contract, I promise to ArtCorps, my family, my friends, the communities, FUNDAHMER and to myself to continue a second year working with these two organizations that have opened my mind and heart and to commit myself to continue reflecting, learning, and implying new methods of popular education, old habits of human kindness and to continue seeking out creative and revolutionary approaches to social action through the arts and to share them with the people and communities that I meet.
Thank you for this opportunity,
Sincerely
Laura Smith

foto links

I know it seems a bit deceptive to post foto links as a blog update (the real blog update shows up below this), but I couldn't seem to get all of these links on the page unless I did it this way. I'm sure that there is a way, but my will to patiently seek it out is being overpowered by the need to cut out 10 more pieces of a giant cardboard puzzle for an activity tomorrow in the youth center. Hopefully those will be some of the next fotos I put up. Enjoy these ones for now, and lemme know what you all think.
HUGS!

Guatemala training to mobil mural FOTOS
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2050561&l=6af55&id=41503977

Midyear adventures and project FOTOS!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2059350&l=bf15b&id=41503977

more more el salvador FOTOS!
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2057748&l=019da&id=41503977

artist "encuentro" to Sacacoyo projects n. 10ish

It has been a while since the last time I wrote and I am sorry to leave you all hanging on the edge of your seats as you wait eagerly for the next entry. So, without further ado I present to you the latest update of Art for social action with FUNDAHMER and ArtCorps in Central America.
During this past weekend I had the pleasure of attending an “encuentro de artistas” (the English words escape me these days), in Monte Rico Guatemala. Thursday afternoon Robyn Saxer and I had an official vacation countdown, as we decided that although we were headed to Guatemala to see and give presentations, participate in brainstorms and contribute to manual writing, we were also headed to the beach and that calls for celebration (and even if it is false information, the word VACATION)!
Getting to Monte Rico was a lot easier than getting back…On the way there we rode a direct bus to a little town called Taxisco and from there we took a bus to Las Avellanas and from Avellanas we took a long skinny boat to Monte Rico. This boat with a tin roof and wobbly wooden benches was an interesting change from the frantic, old American school busses that I ride back and forth in going between Sacacoyo and San Salvador. I certainly felt like I was on vacation when I didn’t even have to hang on to anything in order to keep myself from falling over. This public transport was smooth and relaxing and I imagine that the residents of this area are a lot more “tranquilo” if only for their mode of transportation, than those who ride the chaotic busses of San Salvador to and from work every day.
The “encuentro” was really enlightening and interesting. There was an incredible range of diversity to the experiences that people are having. And, the artistic initiatives varied from that of Alayna Wool, who is constructing a floor from local clay in a community center (my dream project), to Mike Kirby’s project of repainting an entire pueblo near Lago Atitlan with a team of local muralists. The space, the chance to get away from things, and the time to reflect allowed me to reground myself and get back to my original project ideas and evaluate what is working and what is not. I came back to El Salvador with a renewed energy to keep working and a new appreciation for my friends and community.
Since being back, and since my last blog entry, A LOT has happened. Here is the brief version…
I have started painting an environmental mural in the Sacacoyo High school with 21 students from the creativity class. The women’s committee card and basket sales are still going strong and we are really starting to analyze the quality of the work as well as trying to explore the value and rewards of the creative process. I have begun working with the education team, Cristina-the artist from last year and a few local artists to help been working to help develop the next FUNDAHMER arts and culture initiative. The new branch of art and culture is a diploma program/series of arts and popular education workshops that will involve youth from 9 different El Salvadoran communities with the goal of training them as young facilitators who will later communicate the content of the workshop to their communities enriching and implementing new elements of arts and culture in these 9 communities. As for the youth group of Buena Vista, my main project, we are continuing with our river clean up project and will be spending a full day Sunday repairing walls and designing murals which will add color and communicate environmental messages to the locals about the importance of taking care of their river and the environment. Right now we are waiting for a response from the local mayor to see if they will be able to support our efforts by providing trashcans and a trash pick up service. Collaborating with the local government is a bit of a new concept for the people in my community as well as for the other party, but hopefully this exchange will break the ice for more collaboration in the future.
Ok… My dear friends! I am off to buy materials for a banner we will be painting with the youth on Sunday. We have our first FULL day event with them in two days… I can barely believe it. Normally, we only meet two hours a week, but since they will be on vacation until the 6th, we will be taking full advantage of their time.
Sending lots of love from down south!
Laura

to mexico and back n.9ish

There was once a time when I first arrived in El Salvador when I had so much time I didn’t know what to do with it. I would explore the city, eat my breakfast while reading the Dalai Lama in Spanish, practice guitar and bug people here at FUNDAHMER to tell me about the foundation and I would be thrilled if I managed to get them to assign me a task. Things are quite different these days. In fact I have so much to do that I barely have days off, let alone weekends and my free moments are very scarce. I had to take my visa run to Mexico two weeks ago and while my step-father gasped at the thought of a 12 hour bus ride I let out a satisfied sigh and told him how thrilled I was to have the 12 hours to sleep, read, reflect and watch beautiful Guatemala pass by my window. Tapachula, Mexico was nothing like Paulo, the other volunteer had made it out to be. He told me that it was dirty, boring and lacked life and that I would pass two days in a hotel watching TV, eating tacos and sleeping. For me, the experience was quite different. I met a few Mexican chaps towards the end of the bus ride as I was translating for an escaped convict from the US. (He claims he was an ex-drug addict, but the continuous flicking of his lighter in the back of the bus made me think otherwise.) They accompanied me most of the time during my stay there (the Mexican chaps not the convict). I must say, that while Pablo was right about the city being dirty, it was by no means boring, nor did I resort to staying in my hostel the whole time. We explored the colorful markets and tried a beautiful fruit called rambutan, ate mangoes (I can’t go too many days without them), tacos, tlacoyos, sopes, tortas etc. and found a laid back beach town called Puerto Madero where I ended up spending my last night on the porch of my motel under a spitting rain, making abstract art out of the materials I had collected that day on the beach. I’ve been back in El Salvador for about 10 days now and I don’t really feel like I left. I picked up exactly where I left off, with my prevalent meetings, women and youth initiatives and my bean eating and barely sleeping lifestyle. But this is how I like it, life: full, productive and creative. I certainly cannot complain. Today I traveled about an hour outside of the city (I’ve been in the city this week for meetings etc.) to continue with our nutrition initiative in the kindergarten in Agua Escondida. A friend of Robyn’s who will hopefully be able to work with us in FUNDAHMER over the next few months, taught me how to make puppets for the initiative out of sponge, yarn and whatever else I could get my hands on. We worked late into the night last week, and were able to get the sponge base down.
When I got back to Sacacoyo I spent a late night mixing colors and playing around a bit to make the puppet more realistic looking. In the end we gave it a chef’s hat (made out of a white t-shirt that I bought for a quarter second-hand in the center) an apron and named it “Raoul el cocinero.”




Betsaira and miguel painting and playing

Betsaira, the nutritionist I’ve been working with brought a simple puppet by yesterday and Miguel Guzman who works with me in education couldn’t stop playing with the two. I think I’m going to ask him to introduce Raoul at the next staff meeting, since he did such a nice job giving it a voice and a personality. We spent the afternoon painting fake fruits and veggies to bring to the community with which we made a hearty soup and addressed some of the things that are good for us and not so good for us.



The kids seemed to really enjoy the change of pace and interactive learning that the puppets brought about.





We also used some of the clay I still have from Illobasco so that they could make their own meal after Emilia, the little puppet, clumsily knocked the soup off the table. Apart from the kindergarten initiative, the work with the different groups in Sacacoyo is going well. Some of the women (and the father of Nia Dora) are continuing to enjoy the basket making. Many of them enjoyed it, but began to let me know how time consuming it was and so I decided to think of something a little less time consuming and a bit more immediately gratifying and expressive. One of FUNDAHMER’s main objectives for this group of women is that they can make some sort of income to support their families and the community. Thus, I decided to continue working with the natural materials that we have readily available and do not have to pay for. Mecate is platano tree bark, and has a diverse appearance when you tear it apart, turn it over, cut it with different textures scissors and rearrange it on paper. Christina, the Colombian Artist who worked with FUNDAHMER last year started making these cards with the actual banana peal with incarcerated women from the zone of La Libertad. For lack of enthusiasm on the part of the women the project did not continue, but was a great outlet for the women and served as inspiration for this initiative.




The picture posted is of the few cards we had left over after the last delegation bought out many of the cards made with the women of Sacacoyo. They’ve really turned out beautiful and I can tell the women really enjoy doing them as they continually ask me for more paper and give great feedback about the distraction from daily tasks that the expression allows them. Here is what we came up with as our brief summary for marketing the cards… (Please let me know if you are interested in buying any of their work…I can bring it back with me when I come for a visit in August!) We are a committee of 20 women from the Christian Based Community of "P. Mauricio Merino" in Sacacoyo. For the past year we have been organizing ourselves and learning to create and think as a group of women while intending to break the barriers that have kept us in marginalization for so long: Illiteracy, shyness, discrimination and the lack of space that we have in which to enrich our abilities and skills in order to support our families and community. Little by little we are overcoming our fear, shyness, shame and low self esteem. Our ability to organize and believe in ourselves serves as inspiration for other women and our sons and daughters. Through the discovery of creativity and art we are rediscovering ourselves and learning to feel good about who we are as Salvadoran women. With your support we generate alternative modes of income that allow us to develop ourselves from within and to continue building a different image of THE SALVADORAN WOMAN.
Here it is in Spanish for those of you who want to give it a shot. Somos un Comité de 20 mujeres de la Comunidad Eclesial de Base “P. Mauricio Merino” en Sacacoyo, que desde hace un año iniciamos organizándonos para pensar y hacer cosas juntas, venciendo las barreras que nos han mantenido en la marginación: el analfabetismo, la timidez, la falta de espacios para desarrollar nuestras capacidades y habilidades y poder aportar a nuestras familias y a nuestra comunidad. Poco a poco vamos perdiendo el miedo, la pena, la timidez y nuestra baja autoestima. Somos inspiración para otras mujeres y nuestros hijos e hijas. A través del arte vamos descubriéndonos y sintiéndonos bien con nosotras mismas y frente a los demás. Con su apoyo vamos generando alternativas que nos permitan desarrollarnos y ponernos en marcha a construir una imagen diferente de la MUJER SALVADOREÑA.
As for the youth group/movement… We are in the process of initiating our first move towards a cleaner community. Proyecto Rio Limpio, is a river bed cleaning initiative that will be followed by a mural painting process on the walls by the local water source. Right now we are just trying to propose the idea to the local mayor and see if they would be willing to support us by donating the trash barrels(which we want to cover with paint and environmentally friendly messages) and maybe provide a trash pick up once a week. We’ll see how that works… from what I’ve heard, it’s pretty hard to get them to cooperate. But if I’m lucky, Friday I have a meeting with them. I’ve got my fingers crossed. Wish me luck. It seems like there is so much more going on, but that is the general summary of life here in El Salvador. I hope that you are all well and that you are in touch with me soon. I adore hearing from you all. And I miss you all so much. Please continue to feed me with communication and questions! All my love, Laura xxoo

May is the month of abundant mangoes. They come in different shapes, colors, etc. and you can eat them ripe, ripe, ripe or green and crunchy with lime, salt and chili. I like them any way they come, as long as they are mangoes.
May is also the month in which we celebrate the mother and women internationally. The past few Tuesdays have been spent with the women’s committee getting prepared for our mother’s day celebration which will take place tomorrow in the youth center. We have continued our basket weaving, learned to make paper flowers and created a big mural with chalk to honor the Salvadoran campesina woman. It says…
“Mujer, campesina, trabajadora, y valiente luchando por un futuro mas justa.”
This translates to … “courageous, working woman from the campo fighting for a more just (presented femininely) future.”
Unfortunately my camera broke last week so I was not able to take digital photos, but I took some pics on my friend Kenny’s manual camera and when I get them developed I’ll try to see about scanning them in.
Speaking of my young friend Kenny Arsenia, I should also mention that the youth have also been very busy preparing artistic numbers which they will present tomorrow in the afternoon. The girls from the dance troop and one other youth, who I’m hoping will get incorporated into the group more permanently, have been teaching me how to dance cumbia and have asked me to perform with them for the celebration. We’ll see how that goes. Hah! Regardless of how silly I might look, I’ve had fun learning, and the culture exchange has been rich, although they continue to ask me to translate Britney Spears songs for them.
Life in the campo continues to challenge, delight and teach me. Yet again, we are with very little water. The rainy season has begun to tease us by pouring at night and spitting in the day and then disappearing all together like it has done all week.
Regardless, “la lucha sigue” as they often say here, “the fight continues.” When I have the chance, I bath by the river, (which is actually more like a stream,) and enjoy the fresh breeze, shade and the huge butterflies that pass by as I wash away the daily dust.
Dust seems to collect on just about everything around here, the leaves, the pila, the dishes. This past blog entry has been sitting unpublished collecting dust as well. So finally, a week later I’m getting my blog up about Mother’s day. The celebration went remarkably well. The teens performed dramatizations of songs they had chosen and in a humorous way presented gender themes and challenges in relationships between the two genders. We raffled off the baskets made by the women’s committee and pinned home made rose buds to every mother who came in. More than 100 people showed up to our celebration and throughout the week, we have continued to hear people rave about the successes of the youth center in Buena Vista. Overall, it felt a huge accomplishment for those in my community as they have often been looked at as outsiders and conspirers by others in the area. But this day, we all forgot our preconceptions and enjoyed ourselves while celebrating the mother, woman and the connection of family and community.
A few pictures from the past week




bili outlining the area of las naranjeras to lay the foundation of our maps of risk.

These little girls give me so much love and affection and keep me very active and happy!


"el treno guineo"

N. 8 Bienvenidas a Sacacoyo

The sounds of Sacacoyo are very different from the sounds of the city. I wake here between 4 and 5 in the morning to the campo melody of ranchera music, dogs barking, and roosters crowing. Their cries are so intense that sometimes it sounds like they are dying, but Mercedes assures me that this is normal. I no longer use an alarm clock, as the daily rhythm of life here is too eventful to sleep through and there is a lot to be done.
Mercedes is the mother of the 3 year old twins I live with, and the wife of Bili, their father. The twins, Beatrice Alicia and Jasmine are at the peak of their exploration days and my being here and my foreignness are a big source of curiosity for them. For the first few hours after my arrival, they kept their distance, only peaking through my curtain to say “salud” every now and then. But quickly, we began to get used to each other and while they became fascinated with my books and just about everything else in my backpack, I fell in love with their silly and muddled Spanish and their big, dark curious eyes. I’ve been here almost two weeks now and I really miss them when I leave the house and am so excited when I am welcomed home with big hugs and little girls running down the hill to greet me. “Laula” they call me.
The house I live in is made of cement and has a tin roof. Like most families here, the four of them together live on two dollars a day or less, but are considered privileged for the size and quality of their home. There are two bedrooms a living room and a kitchen area. Bili’s sister lives here with her son too. The floor is made of dirt. The windows do not have glass. We bathe with rain water (when it falls) or river water outside in a semi closed booth made of sheet metal and use a latrine out back. Many of our neighbors have homes made of bamboo, cardboard, earth and other materials that are cheaply available. While we do have space and safety (by this I mean we can lock our doors), the simple right to water is not as accessible. It hasn’t rained in over 3 and a half weeks so we have to walk to the chorros when we need to fill the pila. The chorros are a community well and the pila is a big cement sink where we store our water and wash our laundry and dishes. The two wells are meant for the entire population of Colonia las Naranjas, where we live, and they fill on the schedule of Mother Nature. This means that we are never guaranteed water and for better chances, it’s best to go in the early morning or late at night. Regardless, there is almost always at least a family or two there washing clothes and bathing.
Despite the humble lifestyle of this community, they have already offered me so much and have made me feel so at home. With out asking for rent or asking any questions, I had three different families offer me a living space in their home. I settled on two of the three and am spending most of my time stationed here in las Naranjas, but have stayed a few nights with a woman named Teresa who lives in the center of the little pueblo. Teresa has 2 daughters. Kenny is 16 and part of the youth group I am working with in the youth center and Abigail is 3 and is very present at most of the meetings we have. Apart from the girls, Teresa lives with her husband Pedro, her mother, brother, and in the other part of the house, lives a sister and her two children. I really enjoy staying with them, because they are very warm and involved, and Kenny, Abigail and I have a lot of fun together. When I stay over after meetings, Kenny shares her room with me. Saturday night we stayed up late chatting. She read me a beautiful poem from one of her classes and I wove some pink yarn into her hair like I have seen the artisan do outside of FUNDAHMER.
Apart from these families, I have also felt very supported among the other members of the community. Within hours of my arrival, we held a meeting to discuss where and to begin and how to make the most of my time here. Everyone is so eager to hear about my ideas and what we are going to do and they ask so many questions and have so many great ideas. We started out focusing on the youth center, as that is the first priority of FUNDAHMER. But we have also decided that I will be working with the women’s committee, and the cooperative using art to enrich what they have in progress. We are hoping that this year we can get everything in place to have the group recognized as an official cooperative so that they can receive the benefits of a functioning cooperative. I had my second meeting with the women’s committee today. I taught them how to make baskets using macate, the dried bark of a platano tree. We sat in a circle weaving and planning and chatting, while Dora, who I had a chance to teach last week helped me explain the process and proudly showed off the 6 baskets that she had made since last week! We are making the baskets for a mother’s day celebration we plan to have the 10th of May. We would also like to present a mural that same day about women’s rights, but we will see what time allows. I think the biggest challenge I am going to have this year is time and accessibility. The women are only able to come once a week, and while we expected 15 today, only 8 of us were able to make it. The women who come from San Antonio walk an hour and a half downhill in the blazing sun and those that come from the center, like Teresa, walk about an hour uphill. If we do not present the mural in May, we will hopefully do so soon after.
I face the same challenge of time with the youth in the center. We are only able to meet Sunday from 2-4pm because so many of them work and study such long hours. Since being here I have had two meetings with the youth. Like many here, they are very eager to see what I am going to bring to the community, but still trying to grasp the concept of art for transformation and the communication of ideas on a public level and personal level. Most of the meetings/activities I have had in the community have been to get to know the members better and introduce the concept of creativity, communication and organization. Last Sunday I introduced 10 youth to my favorite material, clay. Wearing blindfolds each person sought out a partner who had been given the same number. The trick was that they could communicate anything they wanted with their eyes covered, but they could not say the number. It worked out so that everyone found their partner and once they were seated on the ground together, I brought a piece of clay to each person. I gave them a chance to feel out the material a bit and roll it around in their hands before getting to work. I asked each set of partners to sit facing one another and I put a piece of cardboard between the two for a workspace. Without taking the blindfold off, each set of partners was to form one person using the two pieces of clay. This clay person later served as a symbol for a discussion on the topic of youth formation/growth, which is one of our main objectives at the center. We came up with a list of words to describe the skills and challenges that were involved in completing the task. Our list consisted of the following…
Comunicación/coordinación
Imaginación/Iguales After rearranging these words I realized that they
Relacionar/Respeto formed the acronym for Circo/Circus. I´m trying
Crear/Creatividad to figure out how to incorporate this theme into
Organizar the center so that these elements are always
Present.
From this list, we decided that what the youth center is lacking the most is organization. Since the constuction of the youth center last year, there have been 12 youth semi-consistently involved. I say semi-consistently for the mountain of distractions and responsibility that youth here deal with daily. Regardless, they are hoping to grow and bring new ideas and fresh faces to their meetings and activities. For the past two meetings we have had anywhere from 8 to 10 show up. Our talk about organization and other elements of wonder led me to a class of creativity in the institute here where 25 or so adolescents study the meaning of creativity with a very lais back professor named Edwardo. Rene, one of the young leaders in our group in the center proposed my visit to his school so that I could meet this teacher and talk about recruiting other students who have been introduced to art and the importance of creativity.
Tuesday, I went to meet with him to talk. Instead, he put me straight to work while he taught his first block class. As it turns out, the teacher who was to teach math during the first block never showed up, and this left me an hour and a bit to introduce myself, do some dinamics and find out what they had been learning. What I learned, is that this group of teens is incredibly interested in finding out more about art for social action and are full of ideas of what they want to change in their community. During a dinamic where we got to know eachother and got warmed up, I also learned that they want to do something about deliquincy, violence both gang related and general, environmental abuse, human rights violations, lack of respect... The list went on and I continued to take advantage of their willingness to have me there and willingness to share. What I also realized is that with more youth, there is much more energy, and a wider breadth of ideas and oportunities. By the end of my time in the institute...( I say institute, b-c thats what its called here, but it´s about the same as a highschool)... I had met 25 new enthusiastic youth, a director who is completely dedicated to youth formation and improvement of the quality of life and education, and was offered as much time as I wanted to work with this class and free wall space to paint murals! I´m really excited about this connection and can´t wait to see where it leads us at the center as well as with the others in Sacacoyo.
On my time, I am seeking out as many possible connections I can make to help the youht center grow in size and diversity, but I also want the youth who are already established to be a part of this innitiative and promotion. Through, Levi, my friend who I painted that mural with, I have become connected to another center for youth in the pueblo. It is called la casa de encuentro juvenil Sacacoyo. They are supported financially through Intervida (who Levi Works for,) a branch of Unicef that was established here after the earthquake in 2001. In this meeting I got a bunch of contact information for school directors the local mayor etc, but my main objective was to find out who to talk to to get permission to use the central park to hold art activities. The purpose of these art activities would be promote ideas of youth formation and other FUNDAHMER themes, while allowing the group of youth to interact with a broader population and act as leaders for others.
Well, time is creeping up again, and my bus is going to pass shortly. I am not allowed to walk alone in the pueblo or in my colonia, for factors of danger but also custom. This makes things a little tricky, but I certainly feel supported and closer to the members of my new community every day. Luckily, the buses are safe, and they pass by the places that I frequent. So, feeling sticky, hot and relieved to get this blog up, I leave you to jump onto the 6 o´clock bus.
Con carina y esperanza,
Laurita

No. 7 Celebración y nutrición

Almost two weeks have passed since my last entry. Throughout these two weeks I have painted a mural, celebrated Semana Santa, attempted to arrive at El Imposible (which turned out to be imposible), attended a march, attended a vigil, continued organizing for my move, made fruit faces with kindergarteners, gotten a new name (Laula, from the 3 year old Abe, who I will start living with this week), applied for a visa extension and half way moved into my new home in Sacacoyo. Simultaneously, I managed to get sick with Giardia and become a vegetarian.
The mural was painted with the same artist from Santa Thomas, Levi Rivera, with whom I also painted the sign for the book opening of Maria Lopez Vigil. The plan was to paint the mural with a group of youth from Santa Cecilia so that they could be a part of the celebration and ceremonies that honored Moseñor Romero this week in San Salvador. The mural is a mobile mural which means that a frame was built to support it and roll it throughout the streets of San Salvador. It would have been ideal if we could have brought it to Santa Cecilia, so as to make the activity more accessible to the youth, but for difficulties of transport and mural mobility (ironically) we couldn’t travel out there (it took us 3 hours and 6 people to assemble this thing). Thus, it did not turn out that Carlos, nor the young artists showed up. Nevertheless, we carried out the project as promised to Comite Monseñor Romero. We worked until midnight both nights and had an employee from FUNDAHMER come help us for a few hours, and another artist from Santa Thomas. The mural itself was really colorful and drew a lot of attention during the march last Tuesday. It was also featured in a vigil held in front of the Cathedral on Saturday night.

Here's our mural on the move at the parade on the 24th!

During the morning Saturday I ran around El Centro Comercial trying to collect as much fruit as possible for the previously mentioned fruit faces in Agua Escondida. Trucks and busses whizzed through the streets and people were bustling and yelling about their various products for sale. Needless to say, it was incredible and quite surprising to arrive at a peaceful vigil that night held in this same intersection transformed. The street had been blocked off and people, crafts and literature decorated this concrete space that is usually swarmed with city-life, productivity. The vigil however, came with fresh type of productivity. It was the continuation of tradition and a peaceful and warm gathering of people and ideas. There was dancing, singing, praying, and an overall feeling of celebration and revolution.
These types of celebrations were taking place throughout El Salvador all week, and our community in Agua Escondida wanted to celebrate as well. Those of us in the nutrition and support team for the kindergarten in Agua Escondida helped coordinate a celebration earlier that day. We showed a movie on Monseñor Romero, sang songs and shared stories. Trying to focus a handful of kindergarteners on such activities can be a bit of a challenge, so with two other lovelies, I set up a station outside to focus on nutrition, hand washing and sharing. I introduced Monseñor Mango, a mango face I had made with toothpicks, strawberry leaves, raisins, the cut off top of a papaya and a strawberry nose. The fruits I had gathered in the market that day became our nutritious canvas and after a few hand washing songs and lathering up with soap, we got started on our edible art. The kids seemed to really enjoy the activity and were even more excited when I told them that we were going to eat these creations in a fruit salad after we soaked them in a disinfecting bath of veggie wash. Our fruit went swimming. My hope had been to initiate a fun project to introduce the possibility of fruit as a fun snack instead of sugary sweets and also to give the kids a chance to feel a part of the celebration. The fruit salad fed the 50 people who showed up to celebrate and was a great hit with both young and old.

Health and nutrition are two things that I have thought about a lot down here. Not only for the people in the FUNDAHMER communities, but also on a personal level. Since getting here, I have been sick with a gastrointestinal infection and a second time with the lovely parasite, Giardia. I’ve been doing a lot of research about eating to avoid parasites and am trying to reform my ways. Apparently parasites cannot survive very well in bodies that consume high fiber, no grease, little dairy, no sugar and no meat. Going vegetarian is something I’ve been thinking about for a while. While the Giardia helped to move that decision along, things were set in stone when I passed a truck full of raw chicken on the caretera last week. The crates were open to the elements and stacked high with raw meat glistening in the sun. If you know me even slightly well you will know that food is possibly one of the most prominent things in my mind at any given moment. So it may come as a shock to you to find out that I am trying to control my gastronomic desires, eliminate sugar intake, meat and lots more. If you have any advice on this, or if you have been through this before, I would really appreciate any suggestions you may have.
Sunday was the first of many tests on this front. I had to claim vegetarian during lunch at a meeting in Sacacoyo. Dorita, the sweet and lovely wife of the community leader didn’t question, she only piled up the cooked veggies, rice and tortillas and gave me a smile and a squeeze as usual. If only all situations could be that easy.
The plan for this day in Sacacoyo had been to come in the afternoon with Juan Carlos Payan from the “Joven a Joven,” “Youth to Youth,” program. We were going to meet with various youth in the community to discuss and analyze themes of communication, organization and agreement while incorporating a clay activity and various dynamics. Unfortunately, Juan Carlos had double booked himself for the day and had to attend the other meeting instead. I wanted to take advantage of the fact that Neftali, another compañero from education, was having a meeting there in the morning, so I packed up my stuff and caught a ride to Sacacoyo with him. The meeting turned out to be very informative and helped me get a better understanding of the risks that exist in Sacacoyo and the surrounding communities. We touched upon disaster prevention and the resources that the community currently has and those that it currently lacks. We also talked about vulnerability, human rights and alternatives. A few weeks ago, they had welcomed me into the community with folkloric dancers and this week an energetic and enthusiastic young man named Leo decided that Sunday would be my official welcome as my move in date encroaches and I began to move my stuff in that day.
After the meeting, I headed back to the city with Neftali, as the next day I had an appointment to renew my visa at immigrations. To stay in this country you must renew your visa every 90 days, which means traveling out of the 4 country zone. The 4 country zone includes, El Salvador, Guatemala, Nicaragua and Honduras. At this critical point, as my Project is finally about to begin, I was not thrilled about taking a few days to travel to Mexico and back, so I am trying to apply for a tourist visa extension at the immigrations office here in San Salvador instead. So far so good, I go back Wednesday to pick up my passport. My new friend at the tourism desk promised me at least 30 days, but I’m hoping they will grant me the 90 days I requested so that I can get started full swing in Sacacoyo before having to worry about leaving the country. The whole process is very complicated and I had to tell a few white lies (please forgive me) to try to get the extension. So now, I wait and get as much done in the city as possible before heading back to Sacacoyo on Thursday.

Today, Robyn from Asociación Mangle/ ArtCorps is coming to the city and we are going to talk more about the opportunity for collaboration. She is a theater artist and a group of youth in Jardines de Colon has recently requested with much enthusiasm, theater workshops. We talked briefly over Semana Santa about collaborating with some mask work and improvisation. Today I’m hoping we can set a date to start and maybe even map out a program for the initiative.

Well, that’s me about caught up. Happy 1st of April to all, I hope that the springy weather and sunshine comes your way soon. Come May we will enter our winter months which means lots of rain, more mosquitoes and more flies. But it also means puddle jumping and cool nights so I’m feeling optimistic.
I hope you are all in good health and happy spirits.
Paz, amor y abrazos,
Laura

No. 6 persistence and patience

I continue this week with persistence and patience. I am still not in my community hard at work, but little by little things move into place. Juan Carlos from the ¨Joven a Joven¨/¨youth to youth¨program was out sick yesterday. I´m hoping he will be back today as we have plans to meet about a meeting in Sacacoyo tomorrow with a group of 10 youth from the zone of La Libertad. I know it sounds funny to have a meeting about a meeting, but meetings seem to be necessary for just about everything around here. Cristina, the artist who worked with FUNDAHMER last year told me that if I want to get stuff done, I need to hold meetings, so that´s what I have been doing. This week, I have been scheduling meetings here, there and everywhere about youth initiatives, the painting of portable murals and the painting of stationary murals. The meeting tomorrow will be the first of many for the youth of many communities throughout La Libertad. Juan Carlos has already identified the young leaders of various communities, and has invited them all to the meeting we will hopefully hold tomorrow (if his health permits). The idea is to communicate the desires and needs of the youth in each community, and figure out how these leaders can help us bring about change for them and their peers.
Apart from Sacacoyo initiatives, I have been working with a local artist to paint a sign for the book opening of Maria Lopez Vigil. Maria is a well known author from Nicaragua, who wrote a book that has gotten many people’s knickers in a twist. The book is called “Otro Dios es Posible”/”Another God is Posible.” I realize now, after sitting in meetings with the author, that it is quite controversial as it challenges many biblical concepts. It highlights the possibility of a different god, a more liberal, fair and less macho god. The idea of possibility runs in parallel with the idea that another world is possible. It is not meant to insult the religion, more so to bring awareness around about the god that 95% of this country worship. It is meant to make people analyse deeper, the figure they worship and dedicate so much of their lives to.
Levy, is an artist from Santa Tomas, a town on the outskirts of San Salvador. Until now, he has not yet worked with FUNDAHMER directly, so when he came to FUNDAHMER the other day, I was able to introduce him to some personnel. He is a young, enthusiastic artist who I am really glad to have made the connection with, b/c I am hoping that we will be able to work together in the future. He has already expressed interest in the project in Sacacoyo. So, while I sometimes feel frustrated with the slow pace at which things move, I continue to value the connections I make along the way.
***
I started writing this entry yesterday, and this morning had plans to head to Sacacoyo with Juan Carlos to meet with the youth leaders of various communities in La Libertad. Unfortunately, plans fell through with our transportation and we couldn’t go. These things seem to happen a lot. They also happen the other way around. Quite often, the youth cannot make it to the meetings because they have to work, go to school, or take care of their brothers and sisters. This was exactly the case with the youth of Santa Cecilia this week. Carlos Vasquez and I had planned to go out to Santa Cecilia on Thursday so that I could meet the group of youth and talk about the prospective of painting a mural with them. However, when Carlos showed up at FUNDAHMER that day, he told me that just about every one of them had to work and would not be able to make it. He promised to talk to them all and try to figure out what times would work for them. So yet again, I try to figure out how to initiate these side projects. I say side project, b/c my main focus is still Sacacoyo. But I would also like to continue working with other projects that FUNDAHMER initiated with “Sculpting a New El Salvador” last year.

No. 5 visitors, Kindergarteners and new homes

Hello to all! Happy March!
To begin with, my health is more or less back to normal. Little by little I bring flavor and solid food back into my diet and my addiction to ice cream continues. I just gobbled up a half coffee, half pistachio cone from the stand on the corner. I don’t know what it is about traveling that makes me crave ice cream so much, but I just can’t seem to get enough of it.
These past two weeks have been very busy and it feels as if I just finished that long entry about bus rides and political climate. The majority of my time over the last few days has been spent translating a 13 page document that will hopefully bring in some funding for FUNDAHMER’s arts and culture initiative, “Sculpting a New El Salvador.” Those involved in the arts and culture branch of FUNDAHMER have worked really hard to develop a plan of action for 2008-2009 that is cohesive with their institutional values and constructive for the communities. It’s been really exciting to be a part of the brainstorming process and I feel so lucky to be part of this dedicated and creative team.



Saturday, February 23rd I traveled to Sacacoyo with Miguel, Anita and Alfredo to meet with community members to collect information, share ideas and introduce the concept of art for transformation and discuss the importance of recreation and creative opportunities and expression for the youth. The meeting was absolutely amazing! I cannot tell you how inspired, welcomed and motivated I felt after sharing a few hours with these people. When we arrived, Dorita, the wife of Don Ricardo came running over and wrapped her arms around me as if we were long lost friends. She is so full of energy and kindness and I am thrilled to have the opportunity to work with her. To welcome me into the community, they had invited a group of young dancers to perform traditional Salvadoran dances. The group of 8 youth danced and spoke with eloquence and set a beautiful tone for our meeting.
We began with an introduction and a few dynamics and were able to fit in just about everything I mentioned in my last posting. The only thing that we left out was the filling in of the tree maps that outline the roles of the NGO, community and artist. These I will save for the first gathering when I am living in the community. (It looks like this will happen soon. I’ve got my fingers crossed and my face of persistence on.) There were about 32 community members present at the meeting. Miguel, Anita and I initiated discussions and dynamics, wrote down community aspirations and noted level of interest in Arts and Culture. A majority of those in attendance were adults and very young children, except for the group of young dancers, who were in their early teens. The meeting felt like a success, as we accomplished what we came to do; explain the purpose of Artcorps and vision of FUNDAHMER, get feedback and desires of community members, get to know each other and get a feeling for the already established creative enthusiasm in Sacacoyo while attempting to inspire more.
A lot has happened since the last time I wrote and for fear of leaving things out I will focus less on being poetic and more on making up for lost time. Aside from project planning for Sacacoyo and grant proposal translating, I’ve gotten involved in a few “mini-projects,” we will call them. The first of these projects is the “colorido,” the planning of a visual element for the march that will take place the 24th of March to honor Monsenor Romero. Comite Romero, has been meeting once a week to plan out our actions for the important day of commemoration. I have been put in charge of the “colorido” and if all goes according to plan, I will be working with Carlos Vasquez (a local artist) and a group of youth from his community, to paint a gigantic, portable mural which will be carried in the parade throughout the city.
Another project that is in its youngest stage is in Aguas Escondidas. Aguas Escondidas is a very modest community which is about an hour outside of the city. The kindergarten there is run by an energetic and kind woman named Arsenia, who has become part of our team for nutrition and support in the community. The other members include Betsaira, a nutritionist who recently graduated from La Universidad Nacional, Miguel and me. The idea is to use the kindergarten as a gathering space where community members can come for support, and also to learn about the importance of a nutritional diet for their children. The arts are going to be an integral part of this process, and because the community is only about 45 minutes from where I will be living in Sacacoyo, I plan on working with them at least once every two weeks. During this first meeting, we used dynamics and drawings to get to know each other and as a tool for Betsaira to share her knowledge and gather more information.
After about fifteen minutes of talking and presentation, I noticed how fidgety the kids were getting. Luckily, I had planned ahead, and with Arsenia’s permission, I brought them outside to draw with chalk on the concrete. I drew a big circle for us to sit around and draw inside of and we laughed and got to know each other as we shared our colors and stories. Once we were all a little more comfortable with the chalk and each other a conversation we were having, led me to suggest that we draw the community. We spread away from our free circle of color, flowers, trees, etc. to draw the greater microcosm of the community. As the adults chatted away about worries, hopes and vitamins on the other side of the concrete wall, we got to work depicting out houses, our families and neighbors. Arsenia came out to show me some of the artwork her students had already created, and as I looked through the colorful collages and drawings, the kids crowded around, peaking over my shoulders and leaning in close to let me know which one was theirs and to express their pride. Thus far, we have arranged for more visits, and a celebration of to honor the kindergarten that was named after Monsenor Romero.
The highlight of my week came in the form of Blanca Estela, our regional Artcorps coordinator from Guatemala. She arrived Monday, toting her smiles, encouragement and good energy. We spent most of the afternoon catching up and exploring the beautiful airy grounds of the hotel where she was staying. It was really quite lovely and I felt so refreshed after our first afternoon together. The next day, we met with Armando in the morning and traveled to Sacacoyo in the afternoon to try to find a place for me to live. I now have two viable options, now I just have to make a decision. One is in the home of Mercedes and Billy, they live with their set of four year old twins and the brother, wife and son of Mercedes. They have multiple rooms in which I could stay, one of which was the room of the abuela, whose loss they are currently morning. The house is quite spacious and falls in between the youth center and the town center of Sacacoyo. The other house is the house of Teresita, her husband Pedro, their two daughters and an abuela. Though their house is a lot smaller, their energy and desire to have me live with them makes it a tough decision. If I end up living there, I would probably share a room with one daughter, if not both, and would have a lot less privacy, but I can already tell that I would be very well supported.
Teresa was one of the most involved people in the first reunion we had, and she is also very close with Dorita, which would give me an immediate connection within the community. I’m going to have a meeting with Armando on Monday to discuss it further and give him a date I would like to shoot for to be in the community.
My visit with Blanca Estela however, did not end there. The morning after our Sacacoyo visit we embarked on a new adventure. Borrowing one of the FUNDAHMER pickups we made our way to Ciudad Romero to visit Robyn, another Artcorps volunteer working in the region of Bajo Lempa. Robyn is a theater artist who has hit the ground running with her project. After a tour of the offices in San Nicolas, where we learned about environmental initiatives and visual art motivated anti-gang projects, we went next door to the market for some pupusas. We sat for a long time eating, talking and comparing stories about NGO work and various issues that Salvadorans face. After lunch, we reunited with Noe, the president of Ciudad Romero and active employee of Asociacion Mangle. During our training in Antigua, I had a chance to meet Noe, but was glad to share some more time with him here in El Salvador. Robyn was scheduled to have a rehearsal with one of her theater groups at 5, so we hopped into the back of the pick up and headed down the dusty streets to Ciudad Romero. The play they were rehearsing was of a story about the family of Noe and the story of their lives through out the war. There are 7 scenes and the scene we watched being rehearsed was about their time crossing the border into Honduras as they were escaping the war. After the rehearsal, Noe shared a song with us that he wrote about Monsenor Romero and the long days of the war. We ate dinner at his sister Cristina’s house, and her daughter showed us pictures and told us stories about the family’s past. With bellies full of rice and beans, we made it through the dark and dusty roads to Robyn’s little house to share some wine that Blanca Estela and I had brought from the city. Noe came by and told jokes and played Robyn’s guitar for us. All in all a wonderful day!

Robyn has been to the city to visit me once, but this was the first chance I have had to visit her at the site of her project. She is a lovely, lovely, lovely girl and I’m so excited to realize ho easy it is to get to her. We discussed collaboration and I am hopefully going to go back in a few weeks for their organic veggies market and to further explore how we can make an artful exchange.
As for right now though, I’ve got to get going. There have been delegations here at FUNDAHMER for the past few weeks, so I have been renting a room in an apartment on the other side of town and it takes me about 45 minutes to get there by bus and I don’t like to travel after dark in this city.
So, I shall bit you farewell. I am off to the bus stop and the veggie stand to see what I can muster up for dinner.
Big hugs and lots of love,
Laura
Ps. Feliz dia de la Mujer!
Happy international Women’s Day!!