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