Saturday, 30/6

Our group spent most of Saturday morning and afternoon painting pictures on the outside walls of several homes in the becos in the neighborhood of Peixinhos. Remember that on Tuesday we painted the walls inside CCJ? Well, we put what we learned into practice.

CCJ is well-known in the community we worked in yesterday. They received permission from several people to paint their homes. We started off painting the walls a single color and then drew a design using both latex paint as well as spray cans. While we were painting the house pictured above, several people walking by admired our work and asked us if we would paint their homes as well. People were curious as to what a bunch of Americans were doing in their neighborhood and it was fun interacting with people. People actually stopped to talk to us and ask us questions, which I don`t know many would do in the United States where we tend to keep to ourselves. While we were working we were also able to see how the lower class in Recife lived. The people here don`t have running water and have to carry buckets to their water tanks in order to cook and clean. Since they live on the edge of a river, they put their fridges on blocks to keep their appliances from getting ruined when their homes flooded. The area was crowded and dirty, but most people were friendly and happy we were helping brighten up their neighborhood a little bit.