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