Peru – Wall Art

The Short Bit

Day: 16, 17 & 18 March.

Activities: Painting (walls not canvases), trip to Baranca.

Highlight: Baranca.

Panpipe song of the day:  Yellow – Coldplay.

Mood: Relaxed, inspired, eager to paint again (canvases not walls).

Learning: There’s a lot of satisfaction in completing a simple task.

Hashtag: #makeyourworldcolourful #arthasmanyfaces.

 

The Long Bit

Today the centre was closed so the volunteers were given tasks focused on improving the Los Martincitos site.  Myself and two other girls opted to paint what we thought was going to be a mural but turned out to be 4 walls, in yellow-magnolia.

It was actually really enjoyable to get stuck in and get our hands dirty and this room certainly provided plenty of opportunity to get completely filthy.  Once we’d completed the painting we managed to persuade Tonny (the centre manager) to let us get a tiny bit creative…..  Not exactly Picasso, but it brightens up the room and the sentiment is true to Los Martincitos :

‘Porque no tenemos nada, lo haremos todo’ – ‘Because we have nothing, we will make everything’

Mid afternoon, a few of us headed into Baranca, a coastal town near to our Surco homebase.  With its stunning plaza, beach, live music , art and relaxed atmosphere, I think I’ve found home 🙂

On the walk down to the beach, several murals with amazing detail, colour and concepts adorn the walls.  Bit more creative than our Los Martincitos graffiti!

Wall art has many faces in Peru and in Via El Salvador political and anti-political parties plaster available walls with candidate names (18 in total) and messages for the upcoming elections in April.  It does add a bit of colour to the grey desert dust bowl, although what happens once the elections are over is a mystery.

My days in in Surco and Via are finally up and as the volunteering experience ends, I have a lot of reflecting still to do.   Heading to Cusco tomorrow to start the ‘ME’ part of my journey and the trek, which will give me some space to process all the sights and sounds of the last two weeks.  I’m really excited and a tiny bit scared for everything Cusco has to offer, including some tasty (?) guinea pig.

So I finish this post in the place that I started, La Parc De Amistad watching a gorgeous sunset over Lima.

Hasta manyana (or the next day, or the next day..depending on when I next have wifi)

x