“Humor and Life” a happy way of integration.

In a remote location, within the border between Ecuador and Colombia, the group Humor y Vida (Humor and Life) brought joy and laughter to a town.

In 2006, Puerto Nuevo’s 600 inhabitants lived in fear, in the midst of tension created by the Colombian guerrilla rebels and the armies of these neighboring countries. Most of them condemned to work in the plantations of coca, therefore exposed to the violence of the sides in conflict.

There is no protection for foreigners there, there is no law. Anything can happen. Thirteen artists (3 from Ecuador, 2 from Argentina and 8 from Colombia), volunteered, and put together by the initiative of Patricia Galarza and Diana Cancino, Humor y Vida. They created and found minimum sponsorship for the program “La Revuelta” (The Revolt).

For the past two years they have visited villages and towns close to the border, bringing a message of peace, and hope to this most forgotten people. They stay in people’s modest homes, who embrace them with warmth and affection. For over one week the group opens workshops on puppetry, acrobatics, trapeze, photography, painting, theater, arts and crafts, dance, clowns and conflict resolution.

The local school becomes a mixture of circus and arts. At the end, children and adults manifest their talents in plays, puppet shows, dance, walking on stilts, display of crafts and paintings, some have learned to use the trapeze, others are clowns.

The hardship this group goes through is painless when they see people’s sincere expression of emotion as their souls are exposed. Mission accomplished!