The Color Exchange

Because I failed so much at blogging the best way to see how the mural went will be on The Color Exchange's Facebook page, which you can see even if you don't have a facebook: www.facebook.com/colorexchange

But I will give you some behind the scenes from my journal :)

We quickly learn the best way to rope people in. We realize the excuse of "Oh but we're in a rush" is rarely because people are actually in a rush, it is more so because they think we are strange Americans with paint on our hands. So we say, "But it's so quick! All you have to do is pick a card". Waving them over like we are not taking no for an answer really so they might as well just come. Okay, I can pick a card. And more often than not the people who were "in a rush" end up staying for 10 minutes and they want to paint their own space and they want a picture and yadda yadda. We have way more friends on Facebook now.

The older generations here are not so easily roped in. They have hard lines in their face, bicycling by, wrinkling at our smiling selves. "Do you want to help us with our project!?" Grimacing and turning away. They have maybe seen their friends blown up. They maybe used to not live here but now they have to because someone came and took their house from them and now other people live in it. So it's okay.

But the people who work in the market are starting to warm a bit. Coming out and nodding "It nice". Tonight the inside of the market becomes lit up and the plastic bins stacked and arranged into hallways, spaces. It is a place for a theatre show now. Tomorrow night it is the same thing and we will be there, painting.

We try to get strangers to come but at times the market square is an empty empty place, there are garbage bags blowing around and people don't speak English or think we are strange Americans. So we get a lot of people who are already matched up, but we decide this is okay because we explain what it is about and the people still get a positive experience from it. And every time they walk by they remember and they feel like they helped because they did help.