“Ben görmedim”

Today, we just finished our last project. Painting a wall, of course. I really wanted, before leaving, let the youth, and Mehmet especially, have fun with spray cans, which was not really possible during the big fresco of Foça.  Or by biking a few weeks ago, we discovered a spot around Bostanlı, so dirty that we could easily dare to put a new layer of colours on it.

At the contrary of our previous wall, my view was here to let the youth lead their own project. I just orchestrated. They have been sketching during the week, after having selected a quote, kind of typical teenager one, “why am I still living?”. And finally yesterday we went by foot to this so far away place, bedecked with our so heavy equipment.

Big joke, the wall was refurbished as new, painted two days before, as we will learn it later. A little bit uncertain, we finally decided to start, motivated by the hard kilometres we travelled. Purple tint area, spray sketching, and filling with the fresh remaining colours of Foça. Maybe because of the heat, the area was deserted, and we had a quiet first day.

Today, we had the great idea to take the bus, reaching easily the wall and after a lunch break, we started. Or, rather, we wanted. The tin of paint barely opened, a security guy, from the government, came to us, begging us to stop. He was appreciating what we were doing but, as it is his job, we had to put an end. Of course, except this main idea, I didn’t get a word of his remarks, I couldn’t react, and the children stayed silent. I was a little upset of their non-reaction, even if I understood it. After some talks with Ida, the French speaker, we both went to the security checkpoint, with the idea of entering into negotiations. Ida had a nice speech, helped by the ideas whispered some minutes before, and finally this understanding guard closed by “Ben görmedim”, “I didn’t see anything”, which let us a few hours to finish our piece. Ida, who wants to become advocate, just won her first case.

We came back to work with an increased motivation, and completed our piece in two hours. We finally didn’t put as details as in the sketch, and so, unfortunately for Mehmet we didn’t use the sprays so far. It avoided us to have some heavy-handed lines and let a simple but effective result, colourful and nice. It was their paint, so I didn’t feel so invest, but it was a happy last work of which children are rights to be proud. 

Ps: at the end, I offered the whole stock of sprays to Mehmet, he will finally get the chance to grant his graffiti dream!