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...