despidiendo

Well, my goodbyes have been said, my bags are packed, and by this time tomorrow, I will be almost Stateside. I think my emotions are a bit too mixed up right now to say anything intelligibly conclusive about my time here, so I'll just leave you all with some of my favorite pictures from this last week. Thankfully, that package of cameras did finally arrive and after five trips to customs and a lot of paperwork, they were finally given to me. This meant that over the last couple weeks the girls and I got to go on just a few more photo walks before I said my goodbyes.

To see a selection of the girls' photos from the exhibition, click here.

Thanks for following along, praying, and dreaming with me these past six months.

Bendiciones.

¡la exposición!

This past Saturday was the grand finale of my photography project here in Bolivia - an exhibition of the girls' best photos, all relating to the theme of nature in the city. I'm happy to report that it was a big success and that, most importantly, it was a time for the girls to really show off their work and take pride in their own creativity. Oh, and the event got covered in the national newspaper! It's only in Spanish, but google translator does an okay job if you're interested in reading it. My heart was so full from the day, and my only big regret is that I myself did not get a chance to pause and look at the photos (though other things like the fact that the photos didn't hang straight still nag me as well). Thanks everyone for your prayers and support along the way.
 

With only 9 days left in Bolivia, I'd appreciate your prayers that I'd love, invest, and finish well. See you all so soon!

Psalm 34

6 days till the exhibition and I am needing these words. Prayers appreciated for the crazy amount of preparation that needs doing between now and Saturday!

34 I will bless the Lord at all times;
    his praise shall continually be in my mouth.
 ² My soul makes its boast in the Lord;
    let the humble hear and be glad.
³ Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
    and let us exalt his name together!

⁴ I sought the Lord, and he answered me
    and delivered me from all my fears.
⁵ Those who look to him are radiant,
    and their faces shall never be ashamed.
⁶ This poor man cried, and the Lord heard him
    and saved him out of all his troubles.
⁷ The angel of the Lord encamps
    around those who fear him, and delivers them.

⁸ Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good!
    Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him!
⁹ Oh, fear the Lord, you his saints,
    for those who fear him have no lack!
¹⁰ The young lions suffer want and hunger;
    but those who seek the Lord lack no good thing.

¹¹ Come, O children, listen to me;
    I will teach you the fear of the Lord.
¹² What man is there who desires life
    and loves many days, that he may see good?
¹³ Keep your tongue from evil
    and your lips from speaking deceit.
¹⁴ Turn away from evil and do good;
    seek peace and pursue it.

¹⁵ The eyes of the Lord are toward the righteous
    and his ears toward their cry.
¹⁶ The face of the Lord is against those who do evil,
    to cut off the memory of them from the earth.
¹⁷ When the righteous cry for help, the Lord hears
    and delivers them out of all their troubles.
¹⁸ The Lord is near to the brokenhearted
    and saves the crushed in spirit.

¹⁹ Many are the afflictions of the righteous,
    but the Lord delivers him out of them all.
²⁰ He keeps all his bones;
    not one of them is broken.
²¹ Affliction will slay the wicked,
    and those who hate the righteous will be condemned.
²² The Lord redeems the life of his servants;
    none of those who take refuge in him will be condemned.

jugando con harina

Several months ago, I showed the girls a photo I took as a part of an art project with some friends at Wheaton, in which we used nothing but our imaginations, cameras, and a 50 pound bag of flour. I showed it to them so as to help them to think a little more outside the box about photography, but then without my even suggesting it, they all made me promise that they would get to do their own photo shoot with flour. A week or so ago the day finally came and they had an absolute blast, covering one another in flour and coming up with all sorts of crazy things they could do with it.

With just a month left in Coch, things are ramping up quite a bit. I'm finishing up my research on the seguimiento program (i.e. the "follow-up" that they do with the girls who leave Albergue)--analyzing data and coming up with some proposals for the changes that could be made. And with the photography exhibition just two weeks away, the planning it can feel a little overwhelming at points, though I am hopeful that everything will come together. It is difficult to imagine saying goodbyes so soon, but the reality is that the time is coming and there's nothing I can do about it. I am now split between two places: I may be really excited to go home and be present with everyone I love there, but that does not change the fact that I have become woven into the fabric of life in Bolivia, and it is sure to be a painful experience to take myself out of it.

Some things I've been ruminating about lately: 

“If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality.” 
-Desmond Tutu 

“The individual is... held accountable for complicity with the present-day social structures that continue to deprive racial or ethnic group[s] of privileges and benefits.” 
-Miguel de la Torre 

“The problem with stereotypes is not that they are untrue, but that they are incomplete. They make one story become the only story.” 
-Chimamanda Adichie

cameras, mosaics, agency

cameras
Most of you already know that, as of two weeks ago, there are no longer any cameras. However, thanks to the generosity of a good friend in the States, more cameras are on their way, and we can only pray that they get here quickly. With two months left to my internship, and an exhibition planned for mid-November, there is not really much time left but certainly a lot more to be done. In the mean time, I am finding other ways for us to move forward. We just picked out the theme of our exhibition - "nature, art, & the city" - which one of the girls captured pretty brilliantly I think in the photo below (a personal favorite).

el árbol encarcelado - the imprisoned tree

mosaics [i.e. what-has-been-happening-lately]
I won't lie and say that this hasn't been a challenging time since the disappearance of the cameras. But in the midst of it, I am grateful that there have been plenty of other things going on. Just this week, the girls and I finished our mosaic project [pictured below], after almost a month of collecting, breaking, and gluing glass shards to a piece of wood. This was quite a lesson for me in the challenges of community art, when all I wanted to do as the teacher was control the process, which is the exact opposite of what I should have been doing. Meanwhile in the office, I have been renovating Mosoj Yan's social media, working on the Albergue jewelry-selling business, and gathering data on how the girls fare after they leave Albergue - with the hopes of putting together a proposal for improving the seguimiento (follow-up) program. For my independent study, about once a week I get to sit in on the girls' art class at school, and very sporadically I get to meet up and interview artistas cochabambinos.  Both of these things have given me some great insight into the relationship between creativity, education, class, and culture and I can certainly say I've been enjoying the learning process.

agency

I also recently got to write an article for Wheaton's newspaper, the Record, which was a good opportunity for me to think through on a personal level why art matters in development, and in particular why art matters in the context of Albergue. Here's a little excerpt from it:

Similar to other forms of injustice and oppression, abuse has the power to affect a person’s agency—on one level by taking away a person’s ability to act, but on another by causing the mind to believe that it does not have agency. The young women I work with have experienced both of these. To one degree their experiences have indeed limited their agency, but to another—perhaps because they have internalized the expectation that they are limited—their experiences have made them believe they are powerless. And this is where art comes in. Art can act as an agent of self-expression, healing, and empowerment, because giving someone the opportunity to create tells them they are worthy of creating. And more specifically, giving someone a camera tells her, “You have the ability to capture and create something beautiful."

prayer
-For the cameras to get here quickly
-For all the details for the exhibition to come together over the next month (also, praise that I have already found a space to do it in!)
-For God to give me the strength & grace to invest, love, and finish well

links & likes

If you're interested in staying up-to-date with the latest happenings at Mosoj Yan, you should check out the newly updated facebook page and blog [links below]! Also, the most recent posts are blurbs about the mosaic project I'm doing with the girls right now, so they're worth a look.

The Mosoj Yan Facebook Page

The Mosoj Yan Blog

You know you're on month four of HNGR when...

To give you a summary of how things have been lately (and in lieu of a recent email thread that was going between the HNGR women):

You know you're on month four of HNGR when... 

Your host tías (aunts) introduce you to someone as their niece and the person actually believes you're related, despite the blue eyes, pale skin, and freckles.

You start losing patience dealing with all the conflict between the girls at Albergue.

You get frustrated with  English more than with Spanish, for the way it limits your ability to express yourself.

You know it's going to be really hard to leave in just 2.5 months.

Someone tells you they love you.

One of the girls decides you are the culprit for all her problems, and gives you the silent treatment for two days.

You finally give up and agree with your tías that, yes, the reason that you don't want to eat 3,000 calories a day is because you do not want to get fat, and not just because your body does not have the capacity to eat so much.

When you're the only staff member on duty on a Saturday, you lose your temper at the girls, because they lie and don't take your authority seriously.

You're so busy doing things like interviews, teaching, HNGR homework, research, and peeling carrots that there's hardly any time to breathe.

Your to-do list is so long that you almost feel like you're back at Wheaton (though my hand has yet to revert to its notepad form).

You have to say goodbye to other people, but you're the one staying and they're the ones going.

Instant coffee actually seems pretty normal.