5/7/09 Dressing the Wall (and Myself!) for Mural #4

Today a massive batch of Volunteers - me, Fatima, Brahim, Jamila, and newly sworn-in PCVs Mina, Hayat, and Jamal - assembled in Berberville to take care of some paperwork for the mountain's newest residents...and Fatima and I naturally put the gang to work on our newest (and potentially final) mural. It'll be our biggest one yet, reaching five meters across and three meters up. :D It'll (inshallah) show the impact of pollution on a river system.

We scrubbed the wall and primed the massive space, with "help" (read: active staring) from a crowd of students. Like our previous murals, this one will reside on the campus of Berberville's college and lycee. Tomorrow, inshallah, we'll grid, draw, and begin painting the mural, hopefully with more active help from the students. We hope to finish up by Saturday - Sunday morning at the latest - and will then have our final club meeting on Sunday afternoon.

I keep forgetting how much stuff muraling requires. Buckets (without holes!), water, paint, brushes, rollers, rags, sponges, stirring sticks (though a littered length of hose met that need today), chalk lines, pencils and/or Sharpie markers, meter sticks, right-angles, and, of course, the right outfit.

I'm no Sarah Jessica Parker; I think purses are a waste of time and money and accessorizing doesn't deserve to be a verb. But sometimes I do put serious thought into my wardrobe...and today was one of those days.

It paid off. I think I've found the perfect painting outfit. My problem in the past has been that most of my long-sleeved shorts don't have tails long enough to be able to reach, bend over, stretch, or all-of-the-above, without flashing an inch or so of lower back. Or at least worrying that I'm flashing some lower back. My jackets are all plenty long, so in cold weather, I could just take care of it that way, but our gorgeous spring weather includes some mighty warm sunny afternoons that preclude parka-wearing. But today, I layered a lightweight long-sleeved T-shirt under a huge long T-shirt (that I used as a nightshirt in the US), and voila! No matter how I twisted, leaned, or reached, I stayed fully modest and cool in the mid-afternoon sun.

So when it comes to picking a painting outfit...I'm covered. (Pun intended.)