Our first issue occurred when an individual, in our now very small group dedicated specifically to our mural, decided to repaint and redo the details of a couple of the main animals. Looking back at it now, even they say it was a bad use of the time. This took them about an hour and a half of time we really needed to focus on other issues with the mural.
The next two issues are not related, though they were both relatively major at the time, and do slightly influence each other; the first being that before lunch it was just me, Kavindra and Zahara, and after lunch it was just me and Zahara, the second being that there wasn't enough blue paint to cover the entire sky in one color of blue. The first challenge was actually slightly beneficial because we had space to work around each other and also get to know each other better despite the fact we were rushed for time with so few people to do so much.
As the afternoon started and progressed, the difficulties became almost comedy-like. Right after lunch we had Bryce come and work with the tall roller and paint the higher places that were still out of our reach and beneath the sign. Suffice to say we basically took a shower in blue paint sprinkles. However, this teamwork showed that we could work collaboratively together, since we both had to stand on a wooden table to reach everything we needed to on the wall, we then had to work around each other doing different tasks in similar spaces at the same time. The real difficulties started when Bryce was called back to the maintenance team and another guy, he-who-shall-not-be-named, came in to help. He-who-shall-not-be-named then proceeded to paint past the border of the sign we said to stop at, then after we tried to clarify what went wrong and clear any communication issues, he painted up to the roof on one side as well, so we couldn't make it even without painting the entire upper wall as the sky. I'm not using this as a place to rant. But I was, and still am, annoyed.
To make matters even tenser we were almost completely out of the blue paint we had been using to paint the sky with and the top area of the one side he had been painting was sketchily done and still needed to be gone over. Even though Zahara and I were both pissed off, we knew we still needed to regard and respect his feelings so we gently told him we could handle it from there. After he left we then proceeded to panic. We knew we had to think of a good plan that would actually work with the meager amount of time and materials we had left before we actually started anything. We came up with several plans but the one we decided upon was to paint the top of the wall a slightly different blue we had a bit more paint in, then blend the two colors together with water. It worked well even though it was time consuming and it was just me and Zahara working at this point. The blending actually ended up looking very good and almost intentional.
When we finally finished the sky we then had to deal with the sign saying the name of the school. It would have been blatantly disrespectful to leave the pale green, white and orange of the sign with blue paint splatters and drips on it. However, even after we roped Onkar into helping us we still had the challenge of being unable to reach the highest parts of the sign. So we came up with a solution that wasn't particularly safe, but it worked, and by this time in the afternoon we were desperate. We put a wood bench on top of the wood table we already had there and then held it while Onkar stood on it and painted.
I feel very proud of the mural we completed for the school because we faced many challenges and overcame them, and we also created a beautiful piece of art for them to enjoy and draw attention to the school with.
During the performances the language barrier was almost painfully obvious because they couldn't understand, and therefore really comprehend and appreciate, the lyrics to the song Stand by Me, though they could appreciate the effort we put into it. Also, we couldn't understand any of the performances they really put effort into presenting for us. Still, it was their thought that counted.
After the performance I got really pissed off because, again, it was only me, Kavindra and Nikhita cleaning everything paint related. I believe that it is important that we clean up after ourselves since it's not our school and we should be respectful of their space. I also felt like I showed true commitment when, once again, I was washing stuff in burning chemicals, killing braincells, and was sticky to touch for the rest of the day until my shower because of the turpentine.
In the end, I'm really glad that we managed to help out with the school, finish the mural, and improve the lives of the children and families hurt by the tsunami. But I was also glad when we got back to the hotel and I got to take a 45 minute shower to get all the paint and turpentine off.
A picture of the finished mural. Unfortunately you can't see the bottom part of the mural, but it gives you a good idea of what the product was. What you can't see in the picture is the Octopus in the lower right hand corner, the seaweed across the bottom, the crab in the middle, the second and part of the first fish, and the two starfish. So actually you can't see a large part of it.
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