As it came up to the day of the fair, we spent most of the first half of week 5 running around and tying up any loose ends. We delivered marketing packages to local influencers and media personalities, handed out flyers in Parque Kennedy, and co-ordinated with the Killa team about transport, catering, and decorating costs.
Amidst this planning, we visited Comunidad in Cantagallo on Monday to prepare and serve the children breakfast, adding bananas and mandarins to the standard fare of bread with ham and a cup of oatmeal. The fruits were really well received by the kids and we reported this back to the community soup kitchen in the hopes of continuing this extra bit of food in future.
When it came to Thursday, the day of the fair, we were all excited but terribly nervous. What if no one showed up? What if we had overlooked something huge and it ruined the entire thing? Prone to catastrophising, watching everyone else get to work and finish off the decorating helped me push those worries aside and focus on the jobs at hand. We ordered taxis for the artisans and made sure we had enough food to last them the day. We worked together to project Killa's social media on the wall and to curate an enticing display of the mothers' products. Over the course of the day several people dropped in, having seen our posters or flyers, proceeding to make a few purchases and learning a little more about the Shipibo-Konibo community in Lima. A little disappointed with the early turnout, we also set up a booth outside in the evening in an effort to attract more interest. Held from 11am-6pm, the fair brought in 1,200 soles for the women of the Menin Yaby collective, and perhaps equally as importantly, was a setting in which they had access to toilets and food, were under shelter for the entire day, and had a safe space for their children while they worked.
Many thanks to Fernanda, Ghita, Phoebe, and Tarika for all of their help and for making sure we had fun even when fussing over the font sizes on Canva!