Eindrücke aus meinem Aufenthalt im Mai und Juni 2010 bei Arena y Esteras (Villa el Salvador, Peru)

Samstags begann unser Tag früher als sonst. Um 9 Uhr fanden wir uns zum Frühstück in der Küche des Wohnhauses ein. Teller klapperten auf der Glasplatte, in drei Sprachen wurde ‚Guten Morgen’ gewünscht. Wir tranken Café, aßen schnell eine Avocado im Brötchen und besprachen die letzten Einzelheiten der Workshops. Wurden dann gegenüber auf der anderen Straßenseite beide Flügeltüren des Theaters aufgemacht, war alles bereit: wir sammelten uns langsam in unseren Arena y Esteras T-Shirts in der Halle, um müde und gespannt auf die Kinder zu warten.

Samstags hatten wir verschiedene Gruppen mit Kindern von 3 bis 12 Jahren. Oft kamen drei Geschwister zusammen zur Escuela del Arte und verteilten sich über alle Gruppen. Wir malten Bilder aus Sand, bauten Stelzen aus Dosen, übten Purzelbäume und Handstand, machten Oregami oder Tanz- und Bewegungspiele, waren lebendige Spiegel oder Tiere im Urwald, erzählten Geschichten und liefen auf großen Gummibällen.

Drei Stunden später trat ich dann für gewöhnlich (so gewöhnlich wie etwas in zwei kurzen Monaten im Ausland werden kann) durch die großen Türen hinaus auf die staubige Straße. Zwischen Wohnhaus und Theater standen, rannten und unterhielten sich Eltern, Jugendliche und Kinder, inmitten von Hunden und kleinen Katzen. Wenn das Haus brummte, so brummte auch die Straße, fast der ganze Block. Die Zirkus- und Theaterkurse des Vormittagprogramms waren zu Ende, aber noch war niemand nach Hause gegangen.

In Villa el Slavador ist das Theater nicht durch Mauern begrenzt, der Theaterraum ist sehr viel größer als das Theater selbst. Gab es zum Beispiel Abends Aufführungen waren daran mehr Menschen beteiligt als nur die Schauspieler und die Zuschauer: die Nachbarn, die Mototaxifahrer, die Frau, die immer selbstgemachten Nachtisch verkaufte, die Nachbarin, die ihre Terasse zur Imbissbude machte.

Samstagnachmittags kamen „die Großen“ der Zirkusgruppe, alte Hasen die das Haus kannten. Wenn es gegen 16 Uhr anfing zu dämmern, bauten wir Masken, übten Clown, Jonglage, Akrobatik und Musik. Und wer von uns nicht anleitete, mischte sich wie selbstverständlich unter die Jugenlichen und lernte von den Anderen.

Wenn es Samstagabend wurde für uns, das heißt wenn alles aufgeräumt, geplant und besprochen war, traten wir ins Dunkle und gingen zur anderen Straßenseite, zur Imbissbude der Nachbarin. Es gab Hühnchen, Reis und Salat, Pommes und fritierte Kartoffeln mit Füllung. Wir streichelten die Hunde, saßen gequetscht und müde auf den kalten Bänken und vielleicht gingen wir danach noch zum Kiosk um Inka Kola zu kaufen. Wir waren Freiwillige, Tänzer, Clowns, Theatermacher, Studenten, Schauspieler und Kursleiter von Arenas y Esteras, die versuchten auf drei Sprachen über das Theater, die Kunst, über ihre Wünsche und Träume zu reden. Wir alle waren zwischen 20 und 40 Jahren alt, und manchmal gingen wir Samstagabends noch aus. Unsere Welt war diese staubige Straße vor dem Theater von Arena y Esteras.

2 Monate war ich in beim Theater in Villa el Salvador und die Samstage mochte ich von allen Tagen am liebsten.

As a young leader for Mind and Jump the Gaps I worked with Caja Lúdica in Guatemala for six months.
This was also a part of my studies "Social Work" at the Hogeschool Utrecht in the Netherlands. I have been studying art and education for 4 years, and working with Caja Lúdica was my internship.

Caja Lúdica is a collective without aim of profit, which is founded in Guatemala City, the capital of Guatemala.
Julia Escobar and Doryan Bedoya from Colombia formed Caja Lúdica in 2000.

Julia Escobar invented and systematized the ‘Lúdica Acción' (ludic activism) methodology, which stimulates participation and transformation and the knowledge of others. In 2000 she co-founded the Caja Ludica Collective in Guatemala, which has as an aim to open up space for young people in order to develop their creativity and to reappropriate public space to improve social conditions at the neighbourhood level.

I worked as a Young Leader in a new community in Rabinal, Baja Verapaz that Caja Lúdica started in December 2008. This project consists of three different components: certificated courses in cultural management and cultural animation, creating a network of youth groups in the department Baja Verapaz in Guatemala and the institutional and educative program.
On the weekends youngsters from all over the department came to Rabinal to follow the classes of the certificated courses. This is an important part of the project. Most of these students also participated in different youth groups who are being supported by Caja Lúdica.
The project will exist for two years, after that the youngsters in Rabinal should be able to go on with the project without the intensive support of Caja Lúdica. In these two years Caja Lúdica wants to have 8 different youth groups in Baja Verapaz, the department where Rabinal is located. Caja Lúdica is constructing a network between these groups, because an important part of the ludic activism methodology is that everybody can learn from each other. The more experienced groups can give workshops to the less experienced ones, or some groups are better in circus acts, and others are better with music, so every group gives and receives workshops from the others. All groups at some point should be able to multiply their knowledge and transfer it.

When I came to Rabinal in March 2009 a lot of these processes where just getting started, apart from the certificated courses that started in December. In May I started giving theatre workshops for children and youngsters in Rabinal. The workshops were open for everybody, so every week different children and youngsters joined the workshops. I started with 4 girls and after a few weeks over 20 children came. This made planning the workshops a bit hard, because in advance I never knew how many would be joining, but the kids where always very enthusiastic and they bursted of energy. They acted more free than the Dutch children who I was used to working with. They aren't afraid of touching you, they want to hold your hand and when they arrived and at the end of every workshop they always gave me a kiss and a hug. I could never imagine Dutch children doing this, but there it is a normal way of greeting. Everybody does it like this, my colleagues as well, every morning you greet everybody by giving them a kiss. In some way this little greeting ritual, makes it easier to connect with people. In some way it can be seen as an ice breaker, it enables you to connect with people in a more personal sense.

Sometimes it was hard to explain that these workshops where about playing, but not running around like crazy, as they would love to do. The children weren't used to these kinds of workshops, they only knew the formal structure of a school (some of them were to young to go to school, that also made a big difference) or being free to play after school. So a structure that is in the middle of a school and playtime, like my workshops, was difficult to understand for the children as well as the youngsters. Sometimes the children just wanted to play games or the youngsters where playing with their cell phones. I worked with these children and youngsters for about 2 months and it was beautiful to see, that some of them did change a little bit. How they got used to my way of giving the workshops, that they had to face their fear of standing in front of a (small) public and speak up, to make decisions and don't have doubts about it, to act, to stand up straight and be proud of what you do. There was one boy who didn't speak the first workshop and at the end, he did and I saw how he enjoyed it. This made me realize the true meaning of community art: it isn't all about making art, it's about development, about self-esteem, a process that helps people grow in a social way. Yes, of course I knew all this in theory, but when I saw it happening before my eyes and being a part of it, it made me aware of the true impact community art can have.

Besides giving theatre workshops to these two groups that I brought together, I also gave workshops to groups of youngsters that already existed, in nearby villages.
Together with colleagues and students from the cultural management courses I gave theatre and dance workshops at different primary schools on the countryside.

Living and working in Guatemala was a wonderful and very fruitful experience for me. Of course it wasn't always easy. I've noticed that Guatemalans often take on the role of a victim. They have been victims for many years during the civil war, but also earlier during several dictatorships. For them taking on this role maybe the only way to express themselves. They are familiar with that feeling, or they call it that, because that's the only feeling they've always had, or how they grew up and how their parents grew up. The feeling of being a victim has a lot to do with injustice. People feel that some things are happening to them and they can't do anything about it, or they are afraid of standing up for their ideas. Besides feelings of being a victim there are a lot of other people who have experienced the war from very close. In Rabinal there where several massacres in 1981 and 1982. Some of the people who where part of the military army at that time and killed a lot of people, still live here, or in neighbouring villages.
This situation is very hard for me to understand. To understand how the people must feel. How can they live together with men who killed their fathers, mothers, brothers, sisters, husbands and wives? Still there is a lot of fear. People are afraid of talking about these horrible experiences, afraid to feel the pain again or afraid that they will be killed, because there are still a lot of killings in Rabinal. There still is a lot of violence from youth gangs and therefore the military is still present in the streets of Rabinal. The people in Rabinal are facing their fears every day, and Caja Lúdica tries to help them deal with their traumas.

Eefje in Caja Ludica