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
jueves, 17 de abril de 2008
martes, 1 de abril de 2008
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
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
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