Guatemala: Proyecto Payaso (Clown Project)

These are really just a few of the photos that I have from Guatemala. The ones from maybe the last couple of months... but it'll give you an idea anyway. I worked with Proyecto Payaso for about a year and a half and left it before Christmas in 2005. It was a Guatemalan project working in educating about and preventing HIV/AIDS with a focus on rural communities. We were made up of a squad of over half Guatemalans, the rest foreigners, mainly from Spain, about half men and about half women. Yep, now put that in a pot stir it up, put it around a big long table and call it a collective.



The clowns meet snow, and hail and first ever snow-ball fights here in Guatemala on tour somewhere during rainy season.

















I prepare for the show with shoes made by our resident clown shoe maker Victor. This was touring in the contrary of snow...we were melting.






















I'm flying out of a tree as super woman probably about to use a condom in an improvisation during one of the few workshops we managed to pull off and Stef is conducting a clown disco in the office bathroom to start of a staff meeting.






























Preparing a churrasco (barbecue of beef with tortillas, guacamole, barbecued onions, beens, and beer). Using an old AIDS poster from the office. Juanita, Mario, Eddy.




















A youth group from Jocopilas Quiche that we worked with. They developed a show talking about HIV/AIDS and then toured it to their own surrounding communities.


















One of the fine establishments we stayed in on tour.
































One of our fine work trucks and a typical work day activity... or something of this sort.

























Partying it up on a slippery stage with slippery shoes... you do the math, but it wasn't me.

Ana and Dani ready to be whisked away by aliens to outer space.


















We did some work in albergues after the hurricanes. That's where we are in this picture chasing a young child up a tree.























This is the party in the bathroom continued but I don't know how to put it beside the other picture without messing everything up.
















These are the clowns at the bar-b-q (as seen above)

















The stage... to put things in perspective.





















Herme, looking as smashing as ever in his cowboy hat. This is the typical Herme photo gaze

Me talking to young gentlmen about *sex* and condoms.

More Chiapas...
friends...coffee...and yes, even children.


Veronica, my dear friend, reciting her poem acompanied by Nico, a musician from Argentina, in San Cristobal.


Ana, a friend from work in Guatemala, ready to tell your fortune and Veronica busy writing down...quite possibly connections and addresses for somebody going to such and such a place who should give so and so a call who could give you the names of...

Supported.
We did go with a group of people into some rural communities and yes "played with the children." I met some amazing people with amazing hearts but really...the experience as a whole was somewhat disilusioning.

A friend from Italy trying to engage an unwilling/shy participant.



Veronica rejoicing over two childrens and juggling balls made of balloons and flour.

I love this picture, that's all I have to say.








Yes, this is one of the places your coffee comes from. Coffee drying in big basketball court.















Me and Veronica drinking mate and eating breakfast on the roof in Xela, Guatemala. It's not Chiapas but it's at the end of that trip.

















A picture that my friend Monica took. Monica took all the pictures so unfortunately she's in very few of them!














Basketball takes on a whole new meaning with a baby on the back.

Chiapas, Mexico.

Roughly middle of December, 2005 to the middle of January, 2006.

After I finished my job in Guatemala I headed to Chiapas, Mexico for the "Christmas break." Travelling with my friend Ana from work and meeting up with Veronica another friend that had just arrived in Mexico again from Argentina we spent Christmas in San Cristobal, had an opportunity to go to a few of the communities near there, and participated in the March for the Sixth Declaration and the first reunion of The Other Campaign. If you want details you'll have to talk to me directly.

...the murals in the communities

I'll let them speak for themselves. At first I was rather skeptical, as I am with anything, I thought that murals in the communities, more often than not painted by foreigners, were probably ultimately more for our benefit (the painters) than anybody elses. However, seeing various children stop and stare at a picture of Zapata or a picture of their history sure beats a pepsi advertisement and it seems to be part of the education that starts even in the school system, a learning about their people and where they come from as well as a struggle which utilizes the arts as a tool. I had the pleasure of reading in one girls account of history, hanging up on the school wall, that she referred to Cristopher Columbus as an imbecile because he got mixed up in his navigation and thus called them all Indians.

I advance one meter, I go back one meter
I advance two meters, I go back 2 meters
I advance 10 meters, I go back 10 meters
I know that I will never reach it
I know that it is a utopia
that is a dream
so...
What are they for the dreams, the utopias?
They are for advancing!

Anonymous Struggler

The reason will never have arms
but when one learns to cry for something
one also learns to defend it.

"We are of pure heart."












To the dead- men, women and children- masacred by the para military.

Community of Acteal












A church in a community.















The world will not be the world, but rather something better.

Behind us, we are there, all of you.

For a world where many worlds would fit.
























"Slowly, but I advance."

The snail is a huge symbol within the zapatista community. It is very clear in their concept of time.

"It took us 500 years to realize something wasn't right. 20 years of struggle isn't anything."
-Subcomondante Marcos




The stage in San Cristobal de las Casas for the Sixth Declaration.












Democracy Liberty Justice











Abajo y a la izquierda esta el corazon. (Below and to the left is the heart.)



With all this talk of hearts and after seeing what appeared to me honest and simple hearts, within the sphere of politics, I had to start thinking about redefining my definition of politics. Seriously...

Las Guapas de Jucuapa Centro

Last week of May, 2006. Jucuapa Centro (close to Matagalpa), Nicaragua. A place where the day starts at 4:00 and slowly winds to a stop with the setting of the sun. Where the transportation/communication system consists of one bus that goes to Matagalpa at 6:00 and one bus that comes at 3:00 (that's according to the hour of the sun and not the new hour "imposed" by the government, they like to inform you). The people are people (I don't want to insert the classic..."they were so friendly and happy") and it was lovely to be welcomed into their community and taken seed hunting, fed well and sitting in hammocks as the sun went down.

So here we are, creating a gigantona, a giant dancing woman, in the community of Jucuapa Centro, about half an hour of Matagalpa, Nicaragua. It took them 5 days to create her from the paper mache hands and head to the beaded seed jewellry to the wooden base and flour sack hair and by the end they had the guapa of Jucuapa centro (the beauty of Jucuapa Centro). We started, through a 3 hour long brainstorm with the women of the community, trying to represent the community through the gigantona and what came out the other end was a symbol of a liberated dancing woman. These women are "pilas" (batteries).

"She wears an apron but she can still go out dancing."

Step by step...day by day...

The paper mache mask made of chicken wire glue and paper took a little coaxing on my part...one girl really really really didn't want to get glue on her hands.

But the sewing didn't seem to fase them...even skirts of 10 meters of fabric and shirts of 3 meters.

The seeds and beans and corn from their community. With these the gigantona turned a little hippy-ish, I hope that's not my influence.



Francisco, the man who taught me about the moon, religion and the 6 year long electricity project in their village (they still have to buy candles every week though they put in posts and wires years ago...yay development projects). He helped us with the frame and taking apart a sack for the hair, I bribed him with cigarettes but it probably wasn't necesary. His little boy Berman was the champion marbles player in his school. These two gentlemen won my heart.

Jeronima, the partner of Francisco and mother of Berman, doing a dress rehearsal without the dress. Made the best corn tortillas I tasted on my entire trip (at 4:30 in the morning).

Me...with a woman taller than myself. Now I know what it feels like to get a hug with your face in someones chest and fit under an armpit.