The Beauty of Local Art

1.25.19

More rain.  After we woke up.  If we don’t get a dry day sometime soon, we are going to have a real laundry crisis.  We won’t even be able to burn our disgusting clothes because they will be too soaking wet! 

We still got going despite the rain, as we knew this was our last full day of work. We made every leftover we could imagine eating for breakfast (even pasta) and headed out to San Isidro. 

We fanned out to a number of different jobs again, with general cleanup of debris scattered throughout people’s lots at the top of the list.  We found another nest of tarantulas and screamed just as loudly as we did yesterday, even though they were just as non-threatening to us as they were yesterday.  

We moved tons of wood and plant debris (mostly palms and banana trees) and got several families’ lots cleared in a way that had not been true since before the storm more than a year ago.  We got to do a lot of our beloved “bucket lines” that may or may not involve buckets but that definitely involve the entire group at a particular site passing goods from person to person to move lots of material faster than we could move it by carrying it individually.  It also means that we all contribute roughly the same amount of effort to the overall task, which is nice symbolically and even physically.  And it was raining through most of this work, which meant we got to do everything in our raingear, which is necessary, but just a little too hot based on the temperatures around here these days.  

Most of the crew at Jose’s house was spared the use of their raingear, because the majority of that group was painting the interior of the house.  Because the walls are plywood, the paint soaks in quite a bit, so it takes layer upon layer upon layer upon layer to get something approximating color. That crew had already gone through one five gallon bucket of white paint a day or more ago, but when Jose got the next bucket, it turned out to be light pink.  They went ahead and painted the light pink onto the living room knowing that it would be absorbed into the plywood and today a new five-gallon bucket of white paint showed up so they just kept on painting and covering up the pink. 

A DIRT vet named Marlina (who spent four months or so working in Puerto Rico this fall) helped us to get some perspective on the importance of painting by writing in to let us know that painting plywood helps to prevent mold and leakage, both of which are constant threats to residents of homes with low construction costs.  We’ve been constantly reminding ourselves of the importance of the little things and that it’s the elements that improve the mundane parts of people’s everyday lives that matter most.  We are happy to get the chance to see paint as more than just an aesthetic choice and to see it as a factor that will really improve quality of life. 

The other big news from Jose’s house is that the structure of the added-on bathroom is almost done. Even though it rained most of the morning and about half of the afternoon, our intrepid crew kept venturing out when it wasn’t pouring down too hard and putting up a support or two whenever possible.  The mud around the house was nearly impassable, so they built a little land bridge using debris and banana leaves to help make a path to carry the materials around for the bathroom. They built a platform supported by concrete blocks anchored in cement, framed out the shape of the bathroom (about 4’ x 8’) and put up three of the four wall panels that constitute the room.  The fourth will have a window in it, so it will take a little more engineering tomorrow morning, as will the roof.  By lunchtime tomorrow, there should be the shell of a bathroom on the existing plywood house.  

We had locally caught tilapia for lunch (remember yesterday’s cleaning session?).  The fish were prepared whole, with eyes, tails, and all, which was fascinating to some of us and disgusting to others.  We hurried through lunch to get back to work, because we had to leave earlier than usual for a special trip to a local artist’s studio in our community.  The artist’s name is Samuel Lind, which is coincidentally the name of a faculty member at Saint Mary’s.  

If you were making a film about a Caribbean artist, you would work hard to create a set that looked just like the place we visited this evening.  It is all wood-paneled with lots of windows and art is everywhere, including stacked on some of the surfaces.  Samuel does sculpture, painting, and screenprinting, and has prepared the promotional posters for many local art and culture events.  He is a Loiza native whose family has been in the neighborhood where his workshop is for many generations.  

His art focuses on local imagery and folklore, as well as the African roots of much local religion and tradition.  He is also an activist who uses his art to resist overdevelopment of the community, particularly in the form of resorts and condos that destroy native palms and mangroves.  

We were joined on our tour by our friend Jessica and one of her friends from the university, as well as our friend Katia from SBP.  Our landlord from our house, Marta, also came along.  We wandered from room to room and up and down the stairs, staring quietly at times and talking excitedly at others. Some of Samuel’s prints were for sale, so a few of us spent some time picking out things that we want to add to our permanent collections.  

We were entirely content until our warm vibe was interrupted by a surprising intrusion: a tour bus. We never expected to run into a bunch of mainland tourists, but that’s what happened.  Their tour guides were pushing us out of the way and shushing us, even though we were being respectful and quiet.  It was quite jarring to run into the tourist version of ourselves and find how differently they behaved than we did (at least in our perception).  We barely managed to get out with our purchases before they completely took the place over.  

We understand that Samuel is very popular and is widely respected even outside this area.  When Jesse stopped yesterday to confirm our plan for today, one of the stars of Hamilton was there checking out the studio. So it’s not surprising that a huge number of people would want to visit; we remain proud of the way that we visited and experienced the place as compared to some of the practices that we observed.  

Samuel allowed us to take pictures in his place, so some of them will no doubt appear on the blog soon. 

We invited Jessica and her friend to join us for dinner, and our night got too late to do our usual reflection time.  We will fit it in either during breakfast or lunch tomorrow, though we have lots of plans – including a half a day of work in San Isidro.  We also have to begin our packing process, as it takes quite awhile to wrangle all of our stuff into the smallest possible number of bags (to save money on airline baggage charges).  

So, our next few days will be bittersweet, as we are trying to soak up every possible experience – both on this island and with each other – while also keeping an eye toward our imminent departure.  We miss you and look forward to seeing you, but we are already getting lumps in our throats imagining leaving this place that we have come to love so much . . .