Poetry in the FUNDAHMER bathroom

We come up with our best ideas in the bathroom. Indeed, Albert Einstein was quoted as asking, “Why is it that I always come up with my best ideas while shaving?” This Tuesday, after coming back from my orientation for Art Corps in Antigua, I too found that the bathroom inspired a solution to January woes in the FUNDAHMER office.

Whoa poetess step back a bit. Art Corps? FUNDAHMER? Sorry. Let’s begin with a glossary:

Art Corps: A non-profit based in Boston that promotes art for social change by placing artists inside of non-profit organizations in Guatemala, El Salvador and Honduras.

FUNDAHMER: A Salvadoran non-profit organization based in San Salvador that accompanies the base communities of El Salvador. FUNDAHMER aids these impoverished communities in their development by promoting programs in nutrition, sustainable agriculture, education/scholarships, pastoral work and international solidarity.

Me (Jenny): A poet from San Francisco, California obsessed with Central America, ice cream and the moon. I graduated in 2007 with a degree in development studies and French literature, and after became a high school teacher in an indigenous community in rural Guatemala. From April to December 2010 I worked as the International Relations Coordinator for FUNDAHMER. This, as the prestigious title suggests, consisted of leading delegations and publishing communications between the sister communities in El Salvador and abroad. I applied to Art Corps last year, was accepted (hooray), and from January 2011-June 2012, I’ll be promoting art/poetry for social change in FUNDAHMER.


Let’s start again. FUNDAHMER office, El Salvador, January woes?

In mid November, about the time I found out I had been accepted and would be funded as the Art Corps artist of 2011 (hooray!!!!) bad news began to infect our little FUNDAHMER office. I learned that our Scottish grant, which funded over 1/3 of our organization including our organic garden project would be terminated in January. And then bad news started pouring in from the campesinos we work with in the rural regions of Morazán and La Libertad. Due to climate change, El Salvador suffered in 2010 from vicious hurricanes during the rainy season (May-September) followed by a severe drought in October and November. The farmers in our communities, most of which live entirely on the corn and beans they grow in their fields, lost over 60% of their corn harvest and almost 100% of their beans.

I went home in early December to fundraise for the farmers, and when I came back, I discovered a ghost office. Because of the funding situation, FUNDAHMER had to cut one third of our staff members and programs. This leaves a staff of about 10 people doing the work that should be done by forty (we were understaffed even before the funding crisis). For the past two months, the board of directors has been meeting almost daily to discuss how FUNDAHMER should proceed given the funding situation. Do they stop working with some of the 30 communities, communities that they’ve been supporting ever since the Salvadoran Civil War? Do they stop working with women’s groups, with youth groups, with the scholarship students? All possibilities are depressing.

Yesterday, I sat down to write my plan of how I would ensure art and creativity would become sustainable in FUNDAHMER. I couldn’t concentrate. A horrible cacophony of sighs was coming from the salon where the directors were once again meeting to resolve the financial troubles. I felt like a prisoner hearing the screams of his comrade being tortured in the next room. What could I do to lighten the mood? The epiphany came to me on the toilet. They needed poetry! But how could I introduce it? Put it in the bathroom! Bathroom poetry, brilliant!

I decided on two relatively light-hearted poems, one titled “The moon rises” by the Spaniard Federico García Lorca, and the other “I don’t love you rather why I love you,” by the Chilean Nobel Laureat Pablo Neruda. I scribbled down the verses and decorated them respectively with images of a glowing moon and an puzzled lover simultaneously carrying a bouquet of flowers and a poster reading, “I hate you!”

The reaction was quite positive. During lunch, I overheard two colleagues say, “Now who do you think put up all those poems in the bathroom?” At 3 o clock, my beloved director Anita came in laughing. “Gracias Jenny,” she said, “Never before had I read a poem in the bathroom!” I sat down to give her a massage, and though her back was still full of knots, my fingers promised me there was hope that someday soon she’ll be able to relax again.

As I write this blog, the directors are once again groaning around the table. Perhaps I should serve them glasses of water so they’ll have to head to the bathroom again soon and see the new poem I put up by the famous Salvadoran revolutionary poet Roque Dalton!

Los dioses secretos

Somos los dioses secretos.

Borrachos de agua de maíz quemado y ojos

polvorientos, somos sin embargo los dioses secretos.

Nadie puede tocarnos dos veces con la misma mano.

Nadie podría descubrir nuestra huella en dos renacimientos o en dos muertes próximas.

Nadie podría decir cual es el humo de copal que ha sido nuestro.

Por eso somos los dioses secretos.

El tiempo tiene pelos de azafrán, cara de anís, ritmo de semilla colmada.

Y solo para reírnos lo habitamos. Por eso somos los dioses secretos.

Todopoderosos en la morada de los todopoderosos,

dueños de la travesura mortal y de un pedazo de la noche.

¿Quién nos midió que no enmudeciera para siempre?

¿Quién pronuncio en pregunta por nosotros sin extraviar la luz de la pupila?

Nosotros señalamos el lugar de las tumbas, proponemos el crimen, mantenemos el horizonte en su lugar, desechando sus ímpetus mensuales.

Somos los dioses secretos, los de la holganza furiosa.

Y solo los círculos de cal nos detienen.

Y la burla.

Roque Dalton

Salvadoran Poet (1935-1975)