Painting a Massive Mural

The story of creating the mural is the story of the first seven months of the village. It all began when the kids arrived at Agahozo for the first time. I asked them each to draw a picture of their personal goals, feelings about the village, and ideas about Rwanda. They were a bit timid in those first weeks, not yet a cohesive group, but they found a way to state their nervous excitement in those initial drawings.

Over the next several months we sketched, brainstormed, and came up with a final design for the mural. We developed the biggest paint-by-number system in the world, and began by drawing the outline with the help of a projector at night.

Everyone participated in painting, kids and staff alike. I directed from below, mixing colors and sending paint up the scaffolding with a make-shift pulley. Spots of color started to appear, slowly at first. A blue sky, a purple tree, a pineapple, a person. I spent months covered head to toe in paint- no joke! As the mural came together, so did the village, for what had been a construction site was now feeling more and more like a home and a family.

After every painting session, the kids stood back and marveled at what they had accomplished that day. “When I come back to visit this village with my children one day,” said one kid, “I’ll show them the clouds that I painted!”

Part of the village inauguration on June 23 was held in front of the mural, the perfect backdrop to the kids’ dancing and singing. “Who helped paint this wall?” I asked the crowd gathered at the ceremony. Almost every staff and child of the village raised a hand. It is a big and beautiful expression of the hopes of the village, a testament to what a dedicated group of people, and whole lot of paint can do, and a work of art that will be admired by visitors to the village for years to come.