Allison Havens - Travel y Arte

photos!

2011-09-04T18:24:00.000-07:00

Sorry for the delay in posting. I’ve gotten caught up in my life here and sometimes it’s hard to take the time and figure out how to translate all that has happened into a blog post. Haha! But to help fill in some cracks, I have two links here that give a good idea of the work I’ve been doing with my youth groups so far.

Here are pictures of my different youth and school groups as we are preparing for our parade in Masica’s carnival:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150273586245811.331200.534115810&l=53ab3e3f44&type=1

and here’s some other photos of my youth workshops:

http://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.10150215620955811.315361.534115810&l=699020bb58&type=1

And here is a link to my blog on artcorps where I post stories that more directly recount my work life here in Honduras:

http://www.artcorp.org/users/user_home/201

I’m hoping to give a more detailed update after our parade. My work leading up to this parade has been a little all-consuming , but wanted to drop a quick line and pass on these links to my photos and Artcorps blog.

Artcorps blog

2011-07-11T13:45:00.000-07:00

Hi everyone, sorry I haven't posted anything in a little bit but have been busy. In the meantime, I wanted to share the artcorps blog with you. I have a profile and blog on their site where I upload photos and stories of my work life here in Honduras. So check it out to find out more about the work I've been doing with my youth groups:

http://www.artcorp.org/users/user_home/201

Rainy Season

2011-06-07T06:20:00.000-07:00

So, I am listening to the rain pour down outside as I get my materials together for my first workshop with the kids tomorrow. The hot and humid summer has dragged on here and we’ve had a few cloudy false starts to the rainy season and I for one have been anxiously awaiting the rain. So when it poured down last night and through out the day today I woke up excited for rainy days ahead sitting on the porch with my tea, enjoying not being covered in sweat all the time. Although after a few weeks of this, I might be eating my words, we shall see...
I made apple pie this weekend. We were gonna eat it yesterday but the day got broken up by the screams of the family’s cousin, 10-13 years old, who was attacked by our dogs in the yard as he tried to enter the gate by himself. It was really horrible. The pack of 4 large dogs who were loose in the yard for the day just attacked him and would have killed him for sure if the father and everybody else hadn’t run out and physically thrown the dogs off of him. He ended up with a large bite in his leg down to the bone and one on his arm and the family rushed him to the hospital. So luckily he is gonna be fine and is at home, but it was pretty traumatic for everyone especially all the kids watching it happen. Another good reminder for me that dogs in Latin America are not my friends. I feel a bit conflicted about all these dogs as attack dogs here and just how dangerous they can be if not controlled, but then it’s also a different reality here in terms of security needs so I don’t know. And honestly this was like the 5th emergency visit this family has made to the hospital this month. It’s been a little crazy here. We had the car crash in the middle of the night in front of our house where they had to rush the passengers to the hospital, two different daughters with gall stones with several emergency visits, another daughter with mysterious mid-night stomach pains, the murder of a co-worker from the Municipality, and now this. In addition to everyone sick in bed with the flu to begin with. So long story short, we did not eat the pie yet… but I hope this rain will wash away all the trauma and drama and usher in a more tranquilo season with cooler temperatures to make more pie and chocolate chip cookies and tea.

New job

2011-05-09T08:32:00.000-07:00

My new job here is with the international organization, CARE. I’m working with the project, PASOS 3, based out of an office here in La Ceiba that has a team of about 10 employees. I love my co-workers and my counter-part so far. They are a diverse mix of Hondurenos from around the country- intelligent, hard working, funny, welcoming, and great team energy. PASOS 3 works with communities in the Atlántida region on water systems and sanitation. They help communities form water committees to develop and maintain their own water systems and infrastructure. This includes setting up and teaching how to maintain the watershed (their sources of water), setting up the tubing, how to manage the system, education about the importance of maintaining healthy eco-systems, education about sanitation and health, and a variety of other related topics. My work will center mostly on working with youth in three communities, with the majority of my time in La Masica. I’ll be using the process of mural painting and arts workshops to develop self-confidence, teamwork, creative thinking skills, and interest in the conservation of the environment among the teens and kids here. I’m still learning all about what they do and what exactly my schedule and work plan will look like. I’ll be working closely with the Municipality of Masica and my two co-workers there, who are excellent as well. It’s very interesting to be working within such a large NGO and living in the world of results and quantatative goals and deadlines and numbers and the pressures of donors from outside. As with most NGOS like this, those deadlines and demands can often be at conflict with the reality of the people and communities on the ground. It’s easy for those at the top to lose sight of what is happening on the ground. But yet the sources of money demand measureable results in order to continue funding projects. It’s a hard balancing act that I know Artcorps struggles with as do most organizations that are involved in community development and organizating work that rely on funding from grants and outside donors. Change generally can’t be measured in numbers, and to change the mind or lifestyle of one person is often much more valuable then giving a lecture to 20 people who may or may not do anything with the information after the lecture. But the realtiy of this funding system is that it is much more impressive on paper to say that a person was able to give workshops to 20 people as opposed to having had a profound and lasting influence on one. And how do we really even measure change? That’s where I see the difference with the methodology of Artcorps, I want my focus to be on the quality of work instead of quantity of students. I’d rather be really effective with 10 students then mediocre with 40. But I’m also living in the world that is, that depends on measureable results instead of anecodtes so it’ll be interesting seeing how that process goes here. But anyways, so far so good, appreciating the good vibes of my new work team and am sufficiently impressed by the organization and vision so far.

Home sweet home...

2011-05-09T08:27:00.000-07:00

I am here in my new home of La Masica, Honduras for the next 7-8 months. It is excellent so far. My new host family is huge, there’s about 10 of us that live there. Husband and wife, their 2 grandchildren, 2 kids, a god-daughter, their daughter in law and baby, their aunt, and me. And they love fruit and veggies! The father has a very successful decorative palm houseplant export business as well as a rambutan fruit export business. He has tons of greenhouses around here all devoted to those little palm plants that you might find in home depot, or in his case, in Ikea in Greece. He is a lovely gregarious man who is in love with plants and has been energetically and happily explaining all the different varieties, which parts you can eat, medicinal uses, bringing home different weeds, odd plants, and fruits to cook and give me to try. It’s perfect for me. I have gone from eating fresh meat and coke 2-3 times a day to eating fresh fruits and veggies and tea every day. I feel like I’m in the twilight zone where everything is the opposite from my life before but I only moved 3-4 hours away. Yesterday for Mother’s Day, he took me and the rest of the family to a nature preserve outside of Tela where we spent hours wandering through trees and plants smelling, touching, tasting all the hundreds of plants and fruits. I am living in the Garden of Eden here. I must have tried like 20 different new fruits I’d never even heard of before. Ate lychee nuts and jack fruit and hairy apples and weird grape-type fruits that grew on the trunk of their trees and cinnamon leaves and black pepper leaves and coca leaves and… After fruit appetizers we proceeded to the Garifuna town of Triunfo outside of Tela for a lunch of shrimp and beer on the ocean. Loooovely. So I’m not exactly living the humble volunteer lifestyle I was expecting. I have my own room with private bathroom and air conditioning and a house surrounded by porches and trees and gardens. But this is what was given to me so I’m appreciating the gifts. And I feel lucky to have been placed with such an open and generous family.

Moving

2011-04-19T14:45:00.001-07:00

So, I am moving to another community and organization here in Honduras… it’s been hard to keep up with my blog entries because of all these recent changes and up and down conditions of my job here. So I’ll try and explain as best as possible… Before I started here with my local partner organization, AJAASSPIB, the director left the organization leaving only two employees. One of them was supposed to take on the role of my counter-part, introducing me to the communities, working with me, and supporting me in my work here. Well, that didn’t quite happen and there’s been a lot of disorganization and lack of clarity in my purpose here in terms of which communities I am supposed to be working in, and to what end. In the work aspect of my life here, I’ve felt pretty alone and without guidance. A lot of things were less then ideal and made my position with my organization very hard to navigate. So, Artcorps ultimately decided that this year was not a good year for my organization to host an artist and follow through with their end of the partnership. And so, I am changing host organizations and communities. I’ll be working with CARE, an organization based in La Ceiba, about 3 hours away from my previous position. I’ll be living in a town about 30min from La Ceiba and working primarily with a school there. This organization works on similar issues as AJAASSPIB, conservation of the environment, working on watershed management, pollution, etc. So, my work should be more or less the same- =using art to encourage environmental conservation with youth, but I’m hoping I’ll have the guidance and support of a better organized organization with greater clarity of purpose. Currently I have these two weeks in between before I start my new position after Semana Santa. So I’m back in Xela, seeing old friends, visiting other artists in Artcorps and recharging before starting at my new post. Anyways, don’t know a whole lot yet about my living situation, etc. But wish me luck and I’ll keep you all updated. I’m about to enter another unknown, but hoping it’ll be a move for the better.

Dead cow

2011-04-18T17:45:00.001-07:00

They finally killed a cow! WOW. Don’t know what to say but it was just pretty incredible and horrible and fascinating to watch to whole process from live cow to hot carne asada on my plate in less then 3 hours. They cut the neck and let the cow bleed out until it was dead on the ground. At which point, the skillful work of butchering the meat begin. I was the idiot watching with my mouth open as I was able to view the total insides of the cow in this close up anatomy lesson and watched in amazement as the cow swiftly got cut down to skin and bones around a still beating heart. And the cuts of meat where taken to my host mom in the kitchen with muscles still twitching as she fried up a cut for dinner. Anyways, if you’re gonna eat meat, everyone should see what that actually means… to eat a cow.

Banana Republic

2011-03-01T11:21:00.000-08:00

On the way back from Olanchito the other day with Zumilda, one of the community board members of AJAASSPIB, we stopped at the Standard Fruit Company’s (Dole) plaintain plantation. I’d ridden past the operation many times in the bus and I knew that of all the people that lived out in these communities around Olanchito, half of them worked in one of these plantations for Dole, picking and cutting fruit. The other half work in cattle ranching, which pays about the same but at least you are working for your neighbor or yourself. Zumilda had to ask the armed guard out front to please let us in to view the processing for a moment. Most of the workers were under a shelter methodically and rapidly slicing and removing the bananas peels out of an endless mound of green plantains. They do this same thing all day every day. Its hard work but its work here. Zumilda had several friends that work there so we stayed chatting to some of the women for awhile. These de-peeled plaintains are headed to the US to be made into plantain chips in a factory there. It’s amazing that this whole plantation farm and operation is solely devoted to producing those little chip bags of fried plantains. I have to say that I was expecting something a little more sinister here, after all the horror stories I’ve heard of the workers rights abuses of Dole and Standard Fruit company, not only here in Honduras but in other countries in Central America. One could probably say that Standard Fruit/Dole is the real one running the country here and has for most of Honduras’ modern history. This is one of the few employers in the area and for this, most of the people around here don’t have too many negative things to say about the company. The fact is that this area of Honduras is not in abject poverty like other areas because it at least has jobs provided by the banana plantations and the cow industry. Its definitely poor, but most of the people have houses to live in and food. Basic necessities. My organization in fact had a meeting with them last week to ask for a grant for an environmental project. Haven’t heard many negative comments offered about Dole, its law and power is kind of just accepted as a reality of life here. They pretty much run the show- and pretty much outlaw any other potential competitors from opening up shop. Only after probing a little more do I learn about how last year a group of workers asked for a modest cost of living increase in wages and the company decided in response to close down the whole plant and fire all of them, even those that had worked for the company for years. Which left a whole lot of people jobless without any other options for employment.

So my question is- is this the best we can hope for?? The best we can dream for? Where is the creativity and courage to have higher expectations? Grueling agricultural work that pays barely enough to cover food costs, without job security from one day to the next, let alone health care or workers comp (and accidents definitely happen) and no other options for employment- if you don’t like what they’re offering, you can go starve. Somehow here, in the US, and in the world in general I see it happening- settling. Economists promote this type of economic development as the solution to poverty- urging countries to make nice and open their doors to large “job providing” companies like Dole. Are these the type of jobs we’d really want or hope for? Are we too scared to dream of something better? Scared of demanding something that might actually resemble the kind of world we’d all actually want to work in. Where a family could afford basic necessities such as food and health care and clean water and housing, children can go to school and have a choice of what they choose to do with their lives, communities work together and have a voice in what happens to their cities and countries, and workers have rights. But instead, we call this type of expectation “too idealistic” and settle for what these large mammoth companies want to give us, more often left-over scraps from their own self interest. And every year, we settle a little more and demand a little less. We as a world community need to raise our expectations and start having more creative dreams. Creative thinking… that’s where the real power is at. And unfortunately we don't seem to be teaching that to our kids enough.

2011-02-26T09:01:00.000-08:00

La perrita se murio. I found our puppy dead outside the house today. I’ll miss her, she was joyful. I liked her. Our funeral consisted of a neighbor tying her body to his bike and riding her out of our yard. This morning while we were waiting for the bus we could smell rotting meat as two vultures finished off the funeral of our little perrita. A gecko also died yesterday as Monche for fun lynched the little lizard with yarn on a nearby bush. Shes also the same woman who stabbed a crab and then chased the kids with it at the river. I like her, she’s a very warm, playful, sweet woman, when she’s not torturing animals. And yes, I’m a squeamish city girl who eats meat but can’t bring myself to kill the animal I’m gonna eat. But despite that, I think I can still say that there should be a moral line between killing a living animal in order to eat or for other necessary reasons and killing an animal in a way that prolongs their suffering without reason. Still working on figuring out how to evangelize monche with that idea… There were a few other deaths that night as well- the mice in the house ate the poison and died out of site in the roof, only the smell remains. And amidst all this death, some hope survived in the animal kingdom as a mighty stupid tribe of termites decided to migrate and build a new life on top of my bed while I was sleeping in it at 3am last night. That was a shock.

But not to worry, the termites have since been terminated and my recently funky gastro intestinal system is back on track today with a little help from a friend I like to call “aunty-biotic”.So, I’m back to eating my meat and tortillas and coke and bananas. And waiting for Kenya to kill that cow one of these days.

What I'm doing here

2011-02-11T07:33:00.002-08:00

View more photos here!

What exactly am I doing here? I’ve asked myself that a few times since arriving. That is becoming a little clearer as the days go on. I’m trusting that this experience will carry me along and change me as I need to be changed and that I will be able to flow into a new life here with joy and newfound strength. But there are definitely a lot of growing pains along the way. Poco a poco, I’m finding the joy in everyday moments and I’m beginning to fit into the rhythm of life and am constantly being surprised by what or who each day brings. Learning that if you’re living right, there’s no such thing as boredom, even when there’s seemingly “nothing to do”.

And in terms of what specifically I’m going to be doing here, besides living… well..

I’ll be working as a community artist through the organization ARTCORPS, which sends artists to work with NGOs in Honduras, Guatemala, and El Salvador. I’m paired with a local organization here in Honduras, AJAASPIB. AJAASPIB works with over 20 different rural communities surrounding the city of Olanchito. They help these communities to self organize to protect their rivers, their only water source. Each of these communities has its own council that manages the water for the community including collecting a water tax, managing the functioning of the water system, and planning for the future sustainability of their water. Much of this includes reforestation and environmental conservation efforts around the mouth of the rivers- negotiating with property owners (cattle ranchers and farmers) to buy parcels of land around the protected river area or gain their participation in reforestation and conservation efforts. It’s actually an incredibly organized volunteer system that AJAASPIB and these community members have managed to create. They’ve realized that the government here isn’t going to provide any help in providing this basic life necessity and so have taken the matter into their own hands to self manage their own water. There is still much work to be done in the communities in terms of educating everyone about how trees and forest and livestock all affect their water supply the water supply for generations to come. And the water as yet is not potable in any of the communities but they hope to change that in time.

My role will be to work with the youth in 2-3 of these communities. I’ll be forming a creative youth group to use art to develop leadership skills, confidence, interest in community improvement, and environmental stewardship. I hope to use a mixture of mural painting, drawing, game playing, theatre, environmental education, and whatever else the youth want to do with our group. The hope is that these youth will go on to be the future leaders and stewards of their communities’ natural and cultural resources. I hope to continue with a group of youth from El Nance, who were part of a group formed by last year’s artist. And then we plan to form a new group with a different community here, San Lorenzo.

Week 3

2011-02-11T07:33:00.001-08:00

Adjusting still to this new life of mine. Its been hard at times- it ain’t easy to integrate into a culture and place different from all that has been familiar, not to mention the unique rapid Spanish spoken here. While my time in Xela, Guatemala was a new cultural experience for me, it was still in many ways familiar- I think city-dwellers around the world have their own culture and understanding that is unique to the urban environment. And I’m living now in the countryside where cows are the way of life and you live your life out in the open alongside your neighbors. Church is the only nightlife other than sitting in a hammock feeling the night air. The biggest news of the day is gossip about what the neighbors down the street are doing, or how me and Cassandra went swimming and got chased by a goose, or the fact that the water is running again, or that there were 6 more people that got killed in an armed robbery on the road last night. It’s no major surprise here that a group of local men have been invited and have gone to perform in rodeos in Texas. And everyone seems to have either a sister or brother or cousin or somebody they know that’s working in the US. We hang out with the neighbors several times a day either at their house or our house, at church, at the river, and inevitably we see somebody when we go into Olanchito. Everyone seems related in some way. It’s a town of aunts and cousins and sisters and brothers and grandparents. Life here is local local local (In general, I have no idea what is going on in the world outside of Olanchito). Life moves slow. Lots of seated silences in between the ebb and flow of relaxed conversations. I’ve had lots of time for journaling, reading, drawing, reflecting. Going to bed by 9-10pm, and up at 6am to run. Yes, I’ve realized the need to convert myself into an early morning runner here. The diet of coke three times a day, meat and fried plantains at every meal, and a fair share of candy in between is gonna fatten me up by the end of the year if not also rot out my teeth (so yes, I’ve also started flossing AND using mouthwash).

The Beginning...

2011-02-11T07:32:00.000-08:00

So, I’m here in San Lorenzo Bajo, Honduras. About 1.5hrs outside of Olanchito, our nearest city. 3-4hrs from La Ceiba, the next closest biggest city and gateway to the famous Bay Islands. I’m living out in the campo in a small rural community where most of the people work in cattle ranching of some kind- Land of the cowboys, bananas, and hot hot sun. I live with Kenya, one of the community leaders of the water council here, her two teenage daughters, her mother, and a whole slew of visitors from our community that drop in through out the day. There is a lot of land around the house and the house is flanked by porches and hammocks. Kenya and her mother do all the cooking outside in a wood-burning stove and make traditional breads once a week in their clay oven which they then sell to their neighbors. They also make cheese to sell with the milk, which is aplenty in these parts. Apart from the sad fact that I’m lactose intolerant, I’m considered a very good “eater”, a fact that they like to share with each other. We have three dogs (one puppy), all with fleas but I still pet them every now and then, a bunch of chickens, two parrots, a turtle, and the occasional horse or cow that wanders into the yard. There are plans to get me on horseback soon. The family is very close, spends most of the day outside cooking, cleaning, sitting in hammocks, visiting with neighbors that will drop by. A very relaxed and happy routine. For the first week here, we were bathing and washing clothes in the river as the water pipes weren’t working (which happens often and had been the case for the last 3 months). Its been a fun surprise- more of an excuse for play time with the kids and other women. Today me and about 10 other kids, women, and youth had a huge water fight and played water games for a couple hours in the river- Although its always scary when the cows decide to come down to enjoy the river as well and mass screams and panics ensue as they end up walking all over our stuff and inevitably pooping in the water (I prefer not to think about the implications on water quality…). Tomorrow we have plans for a day of washing clothes at the river, making a fire and cooking lunch, and hanging out there all day. Although today the community got the water running again so it’ll be nice to enjoy bathing sometimes in the house. Oh, and Kenya is going to kill a cow tomorrow.

Painting and Adjusting

2011-02-11T07:31:00.000-08:00

I arrived in Olanchito after a a two day bus ride from Antigua with my new co-worker Reina. The Spanish I had learned in Guatemala flew out the window when confronted with its fast Honduran counterpart and I could barely keep up with what was going on let alone remember how to use the subjunctive. I ended up staying with my other co-worker Lety and her huge family for the week while the Municipal workers were on strike and the office building was closed. Even though I stayed in the house for most of those days with the family sitting, watching TV, eating, doing “nothing”, I was exhausted every night. Adjusting to a new family, a new language, new food, different customs was hard and I was missing all things familiar and comforting. But luckily I bought some kids tempura paints while in town and the kids and I started daily painting, drawing, jewelry making sessions. We weren’t doing any amazing “art for social change” guided activities necessarily, just painting- passing the time, hanging out, talking, bonding. And this was what I needed-Comfort, familiarity, a purpose for the day… friends. So my first best friends where my co-workers kids, bonding over a shared love for painting and game playing. From tempura paints, I transitioned to nail painting with the teenage cousins in the family and received a schooling in the art of nail polish. And with my newly faboulous nails, I was ready to leave the city and move out to the land of the cowboys and mountains, in my new community in San Lorenzo. I can only hope that my new friends here will like painting too…

Gracias a mis maestros!!

2011-01-14T13:07:00.000-08:00

Gracias a mis maestros: Eduardo, Rosario, Paty, Lety, Ana Maria, Doris, Raquel! 5 hours a day, 5 days a week, for 3 months.... that's a lot of talking, sharing, and spanish practicing. Thanks Proyecto Linguistico Quetzaltenango! I am now una experta oficial en the language of Spanglish (and a much improved speaker of the spanish lengua).

Hasta Pronto Guatemala!

El Mural esta TERMINADO!

2011-01-09T11:53:00.000-08:00

CHECK OUT THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE WE WERE FEATURED IN!!!

We finished the mural!!! Last thursday, we finished the last details of the mural and celebrated with a slideshow presentation and talk at Cafe Red. We're all incredibly proud. This has been an amazing experience to mark my time here in Xela. I'm incredibly thankful for all the great folks that I've met working on this project. And then this last saturday, my self and my other two co-artists were inteviewed about the mural for a segment on the news here in Xela- airing on the 20th! Hopefully it'll be posted to the internet as well- I'll be sure to send that out. Here is a little of what we wrote about the mural and its themes. Sorry, I don't have the ganas to translate it into English right now...

Esta obre de arte y pintura se divide en 3 secciones.

Colocando en dos secciones los posibles futuros con respeto a un presente que se encuentra en el centro y la que hoy en dia es nuestra realidad.

Dicho presente relata una realidad discriminatoria que sufre nuestra gente indigena con la falta de empleo consiente, tambien se aprecia la indiferencia de los medios de comunicacion como tambien la desesperanza en los ninos por la falta de educacion debido a que a temprana edad empiezan a trabajar y que los adultos son oprimidos por las fuerzas de seguridad.

La parte izquierda del mural corresponde a una de las secciones del futuro, que afirma el descontrol e ignorancia que tenemos por el presente demacrado que si continua con esa inconsciencia en la destruccion y contaminacion, en poco tiempo tendremos esta vision no como un futuro imperfecto si no como un presente proximo.

Y para concluir en la parte derecha nos encontramos con un pasado que todo ser humano debe armonizar como un futuro equilibrado ya que para lograrlo tenemos que manifestarnos desde ahora y actuar para cambiar con nuestra naturaleza y sociedad en comunidad atreves de nuestro arte.

Y recuerden que lo malo triunfa o gana, cuando lo bueno hace nada!

Santa Anita New Years Mural

2011-01-02T14:22:00.000-08:00

On New Years day I lead a last minute mural painting with a group of high school kids on a delegation from California. They were visiting the Santa Anita coffee cooperative for a week with Willy. We all painted a mural on the morning of New Years as part of a New Years day mural-painting tradition at the farm. The youth divided up into five groups and had to come up with a silhouette doing an action that represented some aspect or activity of life at the Santa Anita cooperative. A pretty good way to start off the new year... Check photos out HERE

Navidad y Nuevo Ano!

2011-01-02T13:19:00.000-08:00

Happy Holidays! While Christmas was not the same without the familiar traditions and faces of home, it was still a festive and fun-filled holiday with new friends and new families and LOTs of super fireworks. I spent Christmas with my roommates at Willy's family's house . I baked an apple pie, he made Indian food and then we ate Guatemalan tamales for midnight followed by an hour of firework throwing and explosions from around the city. New years was spent with a group of friends and a delegation of high school students from the US out at Santa Anita coffee cooperative in the mountains outside of Xela. It was a great weekend with a fireworks war between us and the crazy fireworks-throwing kids of the community, dance party on the basketball court, beautiful walks around the land, a trip to the waterfall, home cooked food from the women of the community, and great fresh coffee. I highly recommend watching the documentary that was made of this community, founded by ex-guerillas, called Voice of a Mountain. The director of the documentary was there for the weekend with the youth delegation and is currently finishing up the follow up documentary set to be finished in March.

Xela Mural!

2011-01-02T12:42:00.000-08:00

So the mural is almost complete....! For the last month, I've been teaching a mural workshop with a group of 5 high school and college youth here in Xela. We started with drawing and painting exercises and then continued with discussion of possible themes for the mural beginning with the question "What are your hopes/wishes for the future?". This led us to look at the problems in Guatemala today that are currently prohibiting those wishes from being manifested and what needs to be done to change that. Our next step was to recruit the help of local mural and grafitti artists to add to our design and find our wall. We finally found our wall at the Centro Intercultural on an outside wall that circles the building, bordering the busy street of Avenida 19. Its a large wall on a busy street with lots of foot traffic. We've had a great rotating collection of artists, volunteers, youth, friends and others that have helped us paint every afternoon for the past 2 weeks. We have one more working day left to finish it and then... CELEBRATE! I've learned a ton from this process, have enjoyed working collaboratively with other artists here, working with youth, practicing my spanish art vocabulary, and getting to know a bunch of cool folks in the process.

Check out photos of the mural here!!!

Feria Navidena

2010-12-11T14:03:00.001-08:00

Can take the girl out of the fair trade store, but can't take fair trade out of the girl... The other project I've been helping with outside of my five hours of language school in the mornings and mural workshop, the Feria Navidena, a fair trade Christmas market at Cafe Red. They have a small fair trade store in the cafe where they sell various products from different local cooperatives and artisans here. Such as honey, coffee, chocolate, textiles, jams, natural medicines, earrings, etc. It was a great event. We decorated the cafe with pine needles and christmas decorations, had all the producers set up tables to sell their items for the day, and then coordinated with a local theater festival to host one of the theater performances at the end of the festival. A great festive day with good food from the cafe, chocolate dipped pineapples, face painting, fair trade, and theater.

Mural class y mi cumpleanos!

2010-12-11T13:27:00.000-08:00

So, it's been a little bit... about a month. I guess I have some explaining to do...well, I've been busy!! I'll start with my birthday, Nov. 16th. I'm 28 now! woo hoo. I'm including some photos from my b-day fiesta at Cafe Red. It was a great birthday. I had low expectations but my roomie Willy helped organize a little fiesta for me at the cafe with cake, snacks, pinata and everything. It was super sweet and a great birthday with nuevo amigos. That day was also the first day of my mural workshop that I'm teaching through another organization housed at Cafe Red, La Botica. Its a workshop for youth ages 13-22 and we've been meeting for 2hrs in the afternoons tuesdays and thursdays. I have 5 students and they're all great. This is their first experience doing a mural and learning about painting and all. We've been working on some drawing and painting excercises, discussing current political and social concerns, and then last week we started the discussion of the theme of the mural and finalized our design. This last thursday, we went to go find our wall- a long process involving permits and lots of talking. Had to meet with the officials of the cultural center where we want to paint the mural. In exchange for "letting" us paint their crumbling wall around the exterior of the building, we have to buy them cement to fix another part of the their wall as well as include a train somewhere in the design of the mural... The center used to be a train station and because of this, they feel its necessary that there be some kind of train somewhere in the mural. It was a frustrating process for me and I think their requests are kinda of ridiculous considering their walls are pretty ugly and decrepit as they are and we're offering to put a pretty awesome painting on them for free. But so it is... and it'll be great. The wall is very visible, big, and will be great for the design that our group came up. We'll start painting next monday- thursday with help from another mural/graffiti artist here and some other folks. Very exciting... just hope we can finish before the holidays.

2010-11-03T14:43:00.000-07:00

Sooo... sorry for the delay in blogging. I don´t think I´m the most suited for this blogging lifestyle... but I´m gonna try anyways folks! So, since the last update, I´ve gotten pretty busy. I moved into an apartment here with a friend which has been lovely to have my own kitchen again and schedule and to sleep in peace and quiet. And we have a pretty fabulous roof overlooking the city. It´s been fun shopping for groceries at the market. I´ve suddenly got pretty busy between school and volunteering with Cafe Red and their organization Desgua. I´ll be leading a mural workshop with a group of youth starting next Tuesday (Nov. 16, my birthday...). We´ll meet for two hours twice a week for a month. And in the end, we´ll paint a mural together. Wish me luck, its an extra challenge doing it in Spanish, but this is an excellent preparation for my work in Honduras. Also, helping plan a fair trade holiday market at the cafe for the producers that make the products in their fair trade store. We´re collaborating with a theater festival thats going on in the city the same weekend. We´ll have the market going on all day and in exchange for purchasing a product, folks will get free entry into the theater performance. We´ll/I´ll also be doing facepainting- which just makes it a fiesta for reals. Been continuing to waitress a bit at the cafe, maybe once a week. And then spent this last weekend painting a mural on the bathroom of the cafe with another grafitti artist that lives next door to us. which was the best way to spend the weekend and get into painting mode. What else... spent Dia de Los Muertos in Xela- a beautiful holiday. The pictures above show a procession of the Virgen around the town center. Groups created these beautiful sawdust paintings in the streets that they carried the virgen over. And then for the actual day, checked out the party in the cemetary. so beautiful and lots of kite flying. The idea is that the kite provides a line to heaven to connect with your ancestors in the sky. Some pictures are attached. Anyways, I´m looking forward to each day getting to know this place and people better, enjoying being busy working on projects here, hopefully improving my spanish poco y poco, getting to know the community here, wishing there was more time in the day for everything...
Also wishing i didnt have a cold today :( . And that it wasn´t so COLD in this city. Other than that, dont have too much to complain about.

vida como usual

2010-10-22T14:26:00.000-07:00

Here are some photos of some side field trips and shots of Guatemala. There's a couple photos of our school's field trip up chicabal volcano. It was not easy, my lungs just about died. But it was a beautiful hike down to the lake in the crater of the volcano. Will do a better job of updating more photos of Xela and where I'm staying next posting. Not too much new to report on, just life as usual but figured i should give another update to la gente. Things are going well. Everyday is a new adventure. But life is also settling into more of a pattern. Im getting to know my family better as my spanish gets better and everyone gets more used to each other. The pigeons and parrots in the bird cage on the other side of my bedroom wall continue to coo into the night and start getting really talkative around sunrise. But I didnt bring three pairs of ear plugs to guatemala for nothing... the kids in the family are really sweet. they are on their vacation from school for these next few months and spend most of their days playing in the house and so love anytime i hang out with them. I cant understand half of what they say but i dont know if theyve figured that out yet... The father keeps inviting me to go run up the mountain, Baul, with him when he goes at 6 in the morning. So, im working up to doing that one morning becuase thats one of the few places to see some green in this city. although im not so sure about the 6am part and the running part... Played a late night game of soccer with the other students and teachers last night, its a thursday tradition. i about died from running around at such high altitudes, but it was pretty fun. i dont think ive played since like 7th grade. i had my first waitressing shift last saturday at cafe red. and let me tell you, waitressing is hard. especially in spanish. but it was fun too, i actually waited on a group of students from the US who were traveling with their teachers around latin america for a few months. and will work again this saturday night. Also going to work this weekend on putting together the flier advertising a mural workshop ill lead in november. Meeting more students at the school and saying goodbye to others that are taking off. Its kind of sad to see some folks go, but im trying to get to know more folks that are going to be around for awhile like me. Anyways, feels like ive been here forever and yet i cant believe its already almost two weeks. I cant believe Ive been here that long already, life is going to go fast.

tengo un trabajo!

2010-10-15T17:23:00.000-07:00

I´m gonna be a waitress! Finally my girlhood dream will come true... Always a barrista, never a waitress. So, less then a week here and i got a little part time gig, not too bad... Although i´m doing it more for the fun of it then for the pay. Although perhaps the pay will help cover some phone calls home. So my friend Willy who i thankfully connected with through mutal friends has this cafe, called Cafe Red. It´s part organicy local-slow food restuarant, part fair trade store, part art and cultural center, and houses their non-profit Desgua- which i learned all about today through the official power point presentation. Desgua does a number of things related to connecting the Guatemalan diaspora, promoting popular education about politics and history, supporting alternative economic systems in Guatemala, and using art and other creative means to work with youth for these ends. I´m probably not describing it in its totality, but that´s the jist. Anyhoo, looks like i´m gonna help out waiting tables a couple nights a week and then volunteer my fair trade business skills possibly for marketing, business planning, ads, and... don´t know what all yet but these are some ideas. And then, looks like i´m gonna lead a mural workshop with a group of youth with a partner organization called cuidades de imagina for a month in November and we´re gonna paint one of the cafe walls. So, i got some homework to do for this workshop in addition to making sure i can say everything in spanish. I´ll let you know how it develops, this was all just talked about and decided today. but i´m psyched and suddenly feeling like this could be a busy few months... ha ha!

Estoy in Xela, Guatemala

2010-10-13T16:34:00.000-07:00

Hola Amigos y familia!

After a 6 hour plane ride to Guatemala City and a four hour bus ride through the mountains, I am in Xela, Guatemala. Today is day 3 of my new life as a full time spanish student. I am living at a homestay three blocks from my school. I live with a Grandma and Grandpa, their grandaughter and her husband and their three kids, their other grandson who´s around my age, another young woman and her baby that lives there to help with the house work, a cage full of pigeons and parots, a tiny rat dog, an aquarium of fish, and a cat. It is a full and noisy house. I go to bed and wake up each morning with the birds cooing on the other side of my bedroom wall (it sounds sweeter than it actually is). The family is full of love and are very welcoming and the kids are pretty cute. Though I would not describe myself as someone who normally goes out of my way to hang out with kids... I am really digging these guys. They are probably the happiest members of the house to talk and hang out with me. I eat three meals a day with them but am usually busy at class and outside the house the rest of the day as my room is pretty cramped and there aren´t any windows in the house.
I love language school so far. The school is in an open courtyard and I meet with my spanish teacher one on one for five hours every morning. It makes all the difference learning a language that you know you will need to use later in the day. I don´t think I´ve ever enjoyed learning a new language so much. But it´s HARD. And it´s hard to believe that I´ll ever progress some days. In the afternoons, the school offers activities and outings. Lots of documentaries and lectures about the current politics and about the civil war and history of Guatemala. We took a trip on the chicken bus today to a nearby town to use their hot baths which are fed from natural hot springs underground. And caught a ride on the back of a pick up truck back into town, which was really the best way so far to see the country side. It´s been a nice community so far to connect with the other students at the school in between breaks and on outings.
I spent the afternoon yesterday wandering around town and trying to get a feel for the lay of the land. I stopped in Cafe Red, a cafe owned by a friend of some friends in Chicago. I stopped in to say hi just as he was about to start a traditional Mayan cooking class. So, i stayed and helped prepare the meal for two hours with three other students. Afterwards we ate together and then I went home to eat dinner number two with my family. That was a pretty fabulous afternoon and it was great to get connected with another friend. Anyhoo... that about sums it up so far. It´s great to be in a traveling mindset again and relearning how to open myself up again to the new people and new experiences that each day brings. Thinking about you all. Much love, Allison

Mural: Greenheart shop bathroom. 3/2008

2008-05-21T12:07:00.000-07:00

This mural was completed March 2008, commissioned for the Greenheart shop's bathroom, an eco-fair trade store north of downtown. I tried to represent the theme of the store, "fair to producers, good to the earth". Two of the walls emphasize the connection between all people through hands. The Greenheart is being held and surrounded by a multitude of hands, this image is reflected in the mirror on the opposite wall, underneath the image of a red cloth being woven by two hands in the top corner and being recieved by two hands in the bottom corner. This image emphasizes the connection between producers and consumers- how people are connected to each other and the need for this connection to be a mutually positive relationship instead of an exploitative one. The other two walls show the importance of taking care of our environment. There is a bamboo tree on one wall representing sustainable resources. The tree on the opposite wall is a cacao tree, from which chocolate is made. Fair trade chocolate is important to ensure the protection of rainforests and prevent child slavery within the mainstream chocolate industry. Both trees are shown with intact root systems, symbolizing the importance of addressing the "root" cause of problems. No society and no eco-system is sustainable if it is not growing from healthy roots.

Mural: Martin Luther King mural competition at Chicago Hostel. 2/2008

2008-05-21T11:37:00.000-07:00

I painted this mural on a section of windows for the Chicago Hostel's 2008 Martin Luther King mural competition. The theme was to honor the life and work of Dr. King, bringing his message into the current day. I won second place.

The center panel of the mural depicts a portrait of Dr. King as a prisoner in Birmingham jail. Next to him are Hamedah Hasan, Stanley Howard, and a nameless Guantanamo detainee.

Hamedah Hasan is currently serving 27 years (reduced from a life sentence) for her minor role in a cousin’s drug ring. At the time, she had moved in with her cousin to flee an abusive relationship. In return for staying with him, she was expected to help with small drug errands. She was given more time than the leaders of the group because she had little information to trade with prosecuters, even though she had no prior criminal record.

Stanley Howard, a current anti-death penalty advocate, is a former death row inmate. He was pardoned by Illinois Govenor Ryan after the notorious Burge police torture case, where evidence showed that Chicago Police officers used torture to gain false confessions from twelve black men- who were given the death penalty as a result.

The hooded prisoner represents the detainees at Guantanamo Bay, and at other US military prisons like Abu Ghraib. These detainees are held uncharged and subjected to torture and harsh interrogation tactics without hope of a fair trial or access to basic civil and human rights.

The top pane of the mural depicts the hand of Dr. King scattering seeds which fall into the soil on the bottom portion of the mural. The seeds represent the words and actions of Dr. King that have since gone on to inspire and call to action the generation after him. These seeds planted in the fertile hearts and minds of millions of people will sprout new life and growth that will challenge injustice from the bottom up. These seeds manifest “grassroots” consciousness and action that is happening now to overgrow unjust systems still in place.

Mural: L'Aperegina honey farm, Pescara, Italy 2007

2007-11-02T19:05:00.000-07:00

Mural: "Once Upon Our Time" for the Heartland Alliance- International Refugee Center, 2006

2007-11-02T18:51:00.001-07:00

“Once Upon Our Time” is a mobile mural created by myself and co-artist and Sasha Silveanu for and with the support of Heartland Human Care Services’ International Refugee Center. The mural depicts the power of storytelling through multicultural and mythological characters and landscapes. Through these painted scenes viewers are presented diverse methods of teaching, experiences of movement and change, and an overall celebration of the imagination. The people, animals, objects, and landscapes come from both real and imagined sources reminding viewers that they are simultaneously the products and the creators of their own realities. This mural reflects the cultural duality experienced by many refugee, asylee, and immigrant children and depicts the equal importance of formal and informal education.

Related curriculum and educational programming (including puppets) have also been incorporated to help explore characters and events depicted in the mural.

The mural was completed in January 2007.

Mural: "Turn the Tide" at the Jane Adams Hull House art center, 2005

2007-11-02T18:45:00.000-07:00

"Turn the Tide" is a mobile mural made with four other artists instructed at the Jane Addams Hull House for Arts and Culture in Chicago. The mural sought to address issues of gentrification occurring in the north side neighborhood where the mural was created and hung. Through conversations with local members of the community the narrative was developed and events and individuals were incorporated. The outcome went beyond residential issues to explore the complexities and externalities of capitalism. The image encourages the community to continue building solidarity (like a wave) and grow organically and dynamically against the corporate mechanisms of monoculture.

Collage series: "Enough" 2004

2007-11-02T18:25:00.000-07:00

This series of large scale collage pieces explored themes of consumerism and advertising in US culture, critiquing America's literal and figurative over-consumption of the World's resources.

Illustration Drawings: "War for Love" a book of poetry by Carlos Gonzalez 2006

2007-11-02T18:06:00.000-07:00