Page 108 - Marlie Burton Roche : Landscape and Bread

OUR LIVES BEGIN TO END THE

DAY WE BECOME SILENT ABOUT

THINGS THAT MATTER

working in solidarity with the people of El Salvador by
I continue supporting grass-roots projects in rural communities. Currently

we are concentrating on support for potable water projects designed to provide covered wells
with pumps for people living at or below the poverty line. We install solar driven water pumps
were applicable. 92% of the water in rural El Salvador is contaminated, primarily with surface

pollution, so it becomes important to have drilled wells with enclosed tops. There have been some
setbacks and some advances with the water projects. Drilling a dry hole in a community where

the children are dying from drinking contaminated water is a very distressing event, and it does
happen. However we have to continue with the work and there have been many successes.

The FMLN hosted an international conference, ¡NO AL PLAN COLOMBIA!. It took place in

San Salvador. The purpose of the conference was to disburse and clarify information concerning
the on-going counterinsurgency war in Colombia. I attended as a delegate. Much the information

presented above is from that event.

Definitely Not A Landscape is the start of a new series of artworks that I am naming: ¡NO al
Plan Colombia! I have no comment to make about this work except to say that what is happening

in Colombia, so much a replay of the worst of the war years in El Salvador in the 1980s, is
definitely not a landscape.

I would like to end this text with three drawings by Salvadoran children: Pedro Cruz, age 14;
Wilfredo Argueta, age 10; Antonio Solórzano, age 12. The children were students in ANDES 21
DE JUNIO popular education ‘Literacy Campaign’ in 1987 when they did these drawings. I call

their artworks:

SOMOS EL FUTURO

104 MARLIE BURTON-ROCHE LANDSCAPE & BREAD