Finger Flower Power - OR - No Rain All Shine

I awoke to the crashing sound of pura tormenta at 5am and thought: “Oh…mierda…here we go again… this mala suerte after having nightmares about not making it to paint the mural for the kindergarden yet again!” However, to my relief, by 7am the morning revealed itself to be overcast but Not rainy. Merril, the young woman living in Copan doing a Fulbright study, had agreed to help me with the kids and paint job and thus showed up with Ellen’s supplies in Cabañas around 8:15. The mural for the Kindergarden playground up at Rio Negro was the last step to a project that Ellen (Jewish American lady doing small educational projects) had started during her first months in Honduras and has been itching to get done for months!

Unfortunately, time, rain, commitments and Honduran life in general had kept us from getting our butts up there. So to have the week of planning and coordidaation actually pay off was a miracle in itself. Napo (the mayor) got my neighbor to drive us and one of his muchacho-jack-of-all trades to pick up some paint thinner, thus astonishingly by 9:45 we were standing infront of a yellow wall being washed by the school children of Profe Lila in the aldea of Rio Negro. There were about 6 little girls and an equal amount of little boys all awaiting our arrival swinging on swings, sweeping dirt, and machete-ing grass.



After mixing the paint in the plastic buckets with the thinner we brainstormed ideas, and the best one seemed to be flowers made with the little kids’ hands and grass using their fingers. The girls picked to do the flowers in teams assigned by colors and the chicos got to work on the grass. We succeded in decorating all four-sides of the playground wall pretty quickly and with much enthusiasm, but when it came to get the paint off of our skin there was mucho anxiety b/c it was oil paint and we only had so many rags and paint thinner to clean ourselves with. We finally got the paint-covered children somewhat clean and relaxed again before taking some pics of our masterpiece and the kids playing in the playground. The teacher then treated us all to icecream cones with pasas. The final mural really did look nice +kid-crafted and all the people who passed by commented on how “bonito” and “lindo” the kids’ work was.

If only all days could involve kids, paint, and icecream…it makes me want to be a kindergarden teacher for real! The Children are so much fun to be around, they just give you an energy unlike any other. Profe Lila was also nice enough to offer me and Merril an almuerzo of frijol, tortilla y verdera before we rode back into town speckled with paint and very content. Lesson learned: sometimes, it doesn’t rain and life lets you win.