Guarayos

Sept. 26. 2013

Hi everyone!
It's been an incredibly long weekend with many adventures that I would not have thought of even in my dreams. I've been back in SC since Tuesday morning and am still more or less recovering from my journey to Guarayos.
Chaotic as I am, I planned to leave my house about half an hour before the bus-"flota"- would leave the terminal at 8:30 pm, but managed to spend a lot more time saying good bye to everyone and gathering a few last things. I waited ages for a bus to come. When the bus came, I didn't think of asking if it passed by the terminal because I thought I knew where the terminal was. Turns out, I didn't and the bus also didn't pass even close to the the terminal and I had to hectically take a taxi to get to the bus terminal-late. Luckily, the bus waited for me and I joined my colleagues for a six-hour bus ride.
I slept most of the journey, so when we arrived in Guarayos at about 2:30 in the morning, I felt like time had flown by.
I found myself in a small village with dust covered roads, small stores that lines the main street, and yellow street lamps that illuminated the scene. There was not a single person on the streets, very different to the busy night life of Santa Cruz.
We met up with the other artists that showed us the "Casa de cultura" - the culture house- where we would all sleep in a small room on mattresses on the floor.
The next day we started planning the mural. it took us rather long to figure out an connecting image for the whole mural. The theme was to describe the culture of the Guarayos, if I understood correctly, a tribe in Bolivia that has their own language and customs.
After dismissing many ideas, we decided to paint the face of a Guarayen woman in the center of the wall ( a huuuuge wall of 45 meters),  and her outstretched hands on both ends of the wall. In between, we planned out multiple elements of Guarayen legends, cultural elements, flora and fauna, and typical handicrafts.
I thought we would start painting right away, but we took a long Siesta to walk around the town in the hot sun.
Once the sun set (beautiful!! see fotos!!) **Have I said how wierd it is for me that the sun sets at 6pm?? I feel like I should be in bed by 7pm every day!!**  we started projecting the drawings we'd made onto the wall and painted until the morning. I didn't feel comfortable at first to paint and stuck to taking pictures--my task--but after a while helped to paint as well.

After about three hours of sleep we woke up the next day to even more heat. we continued painting as long as there was still shade and then went to go to a "swimming pool". Instead of taking a taxi there, or maybe a bus, we took motorcycles. Waaaaaaa!!!1 The roads were completely unpaved and I was so scared of falling off and held on to the driver super tightly but the view was amazing!!!!!
 I loved it by the water, it was some kind of natural swimming pool where everyone bathed with there clothes (thats normal here :) ).

We returned to the Casa around 5 pm and had a reunion. Bad news: there was a strike on the highway because the government wants to raise the taxes. We had to stay longer and no one knew how long, that scared me a little.

The sunset that evening was the most beautiful I have ever seen. I didn't take pictures because I wanted to take in the last rays of sun. At first the sun was behind clouds, but a few rays illuminated the sky. It's hard to describe, but it was beautiful. Everything glowed.

In the evening we went to the plaza. The 24th of September is the day of indipendence of Santa Cruz, so the night of the 23rd the plaza was filled with people. All the schools of Guarayos took part in a huge march through the town and then around the plaza. the heat of the day was subsiding and it was very windy, much nicer than the unberable heat. it was amazing to see all the children carying hand made lamps in the form of stars and in identical costumes.

The next day was cold and windy. We finished painting and rested. In the afternoon we went to the house of one of the people that helped us organize and paint. It was rather far from the town and we drove there on the back of a jeep. What an adventure!!

The house itself was a self built hut, very pretty, and in the middle of a palm tree forest. I really, really loved it there. with the sun it would have been even more amazing. We ate Yuca with soup, chicken, and rice. The chicken was a challenge for me, but overall the meal was very yummy.

that evening we were told that the strike ended and we could go home at 12 am. On the way back our bus broke down, but I slept through it so I'm not sure what happened exactally. We arrived in SC at 8am, super tired and exhausted.

Overall I had an amazing experience and am very glad I ent to Guarayos. Onward to the next adventure!! We have a big party coming up this Saturday.........

Besos,
Lena