Semana Santa, Salinas

A beautiful first weekend of our Semana Santa holiday week…

in Salinas with Flor, Tyrone and Emily.

Emily's convincing seal-lion impression at the "Chocolatera", the peninsula that is the most Western-point of the whole South American continent as Ty told us. 

… and the night before on the dance floor:

Happy hols! :-)

Bring on the Easter holidays! :-)

Yay, as of Friday just gone we are on official Easter holidays from JUCONI… a whole week plus both weekends either side, and Em and I are planning on getting out of the city and into the countryside as much as possible… bring it on! 

Happy Easter week to everyone back home too. 

:-)

As a p.s. to this post too:

Last weekend was Laura and Maía José's despedida (hence the leaving card above - I made this one for Laura and Emily made one for Coté). 

So there was lots of dancing in our house on the Saturday night…

…which led to hang-over cooking for our final dinner altogether on the Sunday and this new cooking style modeled by Emily:

The weekend before Em and me had also gone to Montañita with Paul and Ingrid and we danced like mad there too and went to bed at sunrise in this luxury camping spot where our tents were ontop of mattresses and protected from the torrential (but deliciously coooling inside the tents!) morning dowpour by cabin roofing:

(Having this tent is thanks to Teresa bringing it with her back in February.  When I left Sustainable Bolivia back in January I'd left my tent (bought new in Bolivia and I'm ashamed to say, never used it!) and my sleeping bag with her, not expecting to ever see them again, but she insisted on returning them and after some loving attention (namely buying copper tubing and masking tape to repair the impossibly ruined poles, with Tyrone's advice and help), managed to get the tent upright here in Montañita…round 2 cause the weekend before in Playas with Ty and Michelle we hadn't managed.)

Art Club 1.09: Costumes stage 1, headbands

THEME OF WEEK 1:09: Costumes stage 1, headbands

18th to 23rd March 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  For the children to create the first part of their costumes for their dance presentation on the day of the pop-up carnival float exhibition.  Emily and I have finally confirmed the involvement of two professional dance teachers, Thamára and Sofía, to come in and teach a dance choreography to the children in Socio Vivienda and Sergio Toral in April.  We've got approval of the budget signed off, with half the funds being covered by cmap and half by JUCONI, a total of $560 for 6 rehearsals and 2 presentations, involving 3 different groups.  

PROCESS: 

1. Whilst Emily prepared sheets of glitter paper by spray painting then gluing glitter onto large sheets of paper, I prepared the headband bases by first spraying a blue base colour on cardboard which I then guillotined into strips and stapled elastic onto at only one end.  We also decorated an example each. 

N.B. We had no time to gather reference imagery but discussed that if we had have it would have been good to print out photos of both boys and girls and men and women wearing carnival headdresses.  We heard a couple of comments from one boy in Sergio Toral that our facilitator examples were 'for girls' but in actual fact, all of the children made headbands and seemed to really enjoy themselves in the process, and there was no embarrassment from any of the boys in putting them on.

2. At the beginning of the workshops Emily and I were each armed with a stapler and measured the bands against the children's heads one-by-one, stapling the elastic in the correct place to fit to their head and cutting off any excess card or elastic. 

3. Facilitator demonstration of the steps of the activity.  

N.B. With Jonny we always wrote our a step-by-step instruction sheet.  Having noticed that it is not always necessary, we choose not to have one this week, hence the importance of the demo. 

4. The children decorate their headbands, first with tissue paper in a range of blues and silver, cut or ripped to the desired shape or size and stuck on with PVA mixed down with water, applied with a paintbrush.  Next they cut feather shapes out from the glitter paper, attaching these to their headbands with staples and adding a thin strip of wire along the back with masking tape to keep the feathers upright. The third step was adding a ribbon of turquoise sequins, secured with silicone and staples.  Some of the children in Sergio used their initiative and pulled the sequins off of the string to stick on separately, a tip we passed onto the kids in Socio.  In Socio Vivienda we also had a few additional materials, thanks to my brilliant Mum who sent me an Easter package that included sequins and sequin netting for our workshops.  The kids absolutely love decorative materials like these and it was impressive to see just how far the contents of the tiny box stretched!  Thanks Mum! :-)

MATERIALS: 2 x facilitator examples, pre-prepared glitter sheets in blue and gold, pre-prepared blue headbands with elastic attached, scissors, stapler and staples, felt pens, roll of turquoise sequin string, wire and wire cutters, masking tape, PVA and silicone, tissue papers in blues, silver and yellow, paintbrushes, bowls and water for mixing (and bonus materials in SV: sequins and sequin netting)

N.B. The restriction of colours to blue and yellow was a deliberate choice made after looking at different photos online of carnival processions in Brazil and Ecuador and noticing that the most effective children's costumes were colour themed.  The particular choice of yellow and blue was made by Emily as these are the colours that she associates with Socio Vivienda (interestingly the colours I would associate with Socio would be yellow and green and in Sergio green and red). 

In both sectors this was a definitely a very popular workshop, confirming our observations that the children love any activity involving a simple decorative process and particularly when it is for something that they can then wear!  Take a look at our cmap blog for some smiley-faced photos of our kids enjoying wearing their headbands.

Art Club Adolescents: Stencils and spray paint

TEENAGE GROUP sessions 3 to 5: stencils and spray paint 

3rd session 12th March: Stencils and windscreen panel

4th session 19th March: Name stencils and t-shirts 1

5th session 26th March: Name stencils and t-shirts 2

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To continue the teenager's Art Club group with an age-appropriate and stimulating activity.  Entrusting the kids with scalpels to cut out stencils, and to comply with health and safety rules whilst using spray paint we hoped to generate further trust and confidence between them and the facilitators.  Another key aim was for these activities to generate pieces for the pop-up carnival float exhibition: a windscreen panel and the teen's costumes. 

PROCESS Session 3, Stencils and spray-painting the windscreen panel: 

1. During our second session with the teens Emily and I interviewed them about their communities, recording their answers in written questionnaires.  One of these questions was "What are 3 words to describe Socio Vivienda?"  In preparing for the workshop I drew out the words they chose onto thin card.

2. Emily and I cut cardboard and paper to fit the windows of the JUCONI truck and Emily spray painted a gradient on shiny white paper to fit across the windscreen panel.

3.  During the workshop the teens cut out the letters to create stencils, using scalpels or scissors as preferred.  Each started with one of the large letters from the title: "Socio Vivienda" and then continued with the full words.   

4.  Covering their nose and mouth with a protective mask, and wearing latex gloves, the kids went out the back of the CNH building to spray their stencils onto the windscreen panel with Emily in the open air. 

The words that the teens used to describe Socio Vivienda and that they sprayed onto the windscreen panel are an interesting mix: pretty, beautiful, clean, love, peaceful, friendly, very happy,  a lot of noise, fun, intelligent and… a bit strange ("medio raro"!) It was refreshing to hear these very positive words after spending so many months seeing Socio Vivienda through the JUCONI lense, which, due to its work with the most vulnerable children living with high levels of domestic violence, inevitably focuses on the negatives that JUCONI hopes to change.  I was certainly happy to hear these positive descriptions and simultaneously felt ashamed that I was surprised that the kids chose this words. Thanks to all of our teens for helping me to see Socio Vivienda in a fresh way! 

PROCESS Sessions 4 and 5, Name stencils and spray-painting t-shirts: 

1.  At the very last minute I pre-prepared an Art Club logo (CDA for "Club de Arte" that by coincidence turned out looking like a musical clef, making the link with the initial teen musician-referenced workshops).  

This week we had our second Jorli group volunteer, the amazingly helpful graphic designed Daniel who was a great help with a couple of suggestions for the logo and in scapeling it out, plus the kids responded to him really well. 

Thanks Daniel! :-)

2. In the 4th workshop each teen wrote out his or her name in pencil, and then cut this out with a scalpel or scissors. 

3. One-by-one the teens sprayed the CDA logo and their names onto the back of their t-shirts under the supervision and instruction of Emily outside.  They also added a smaller version of the CDA logo on the front and some added numbers to the back or sleeves.   This process spanned across the 4th and 5th workshop. 

N.B. The choice to pre-write the words for the children to cut out in session 3 was as a result of observing how the process of writing out their names in session 1 had been very slow.  Recognising that for the teens to feel satisfied by the workshop it would be important that they would each get to the stage of spray painting at least one letter during this workshop,  we gave them this head-start.  In the following session we encouraged the kids to each go through the whole process, from sketching out their name in pencil, through the cutting and spraying.  Between workshops 4 and 5 I made some adjustments to stencils for kids who had particularly struggled.  

It's been great to see that, as we'd hoped, the kids both really engaged with the age-appropriate activity and really responded to the trust we put in them with the materials.  They have been working very calmly and with concentration and enthusiasm, and these Thursday afternoon workshops are really enjoyable spaces to be in.  Now we're looking forward to seeing how the teens respond to the dance rehersals coming up after the Easter break!    

Art Club Adolescents: introductions through music

OPENING NEW TEENAGE GROUP: Introductions through music

1st session 26th February: Stylized names

2nd session 5th March: Youtube profile

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To open a new Art Club group with the teenage population that is attended individually by JUCONI pychologists in Socio Vivienda.  Recognising that music is a key part of the kids' lives in Socio Vivienda we decided to use this as a starting point, and in the same way that our first session with the new groups of younger children focused on a simple task of introducing ourselves with a simple name-based task,  with the adolescents we started off with a name writing activity, referencing the highly stylised lettering used in promo material by the most popular musicians listened to hear in Ecuador.  This was developed into Youtube video layouts the following week. 

PROCESS Session 1, Stylised names:  

1. Emily and I researched popular Ecuadorian musicians that would be familiar to the teens, asking Ronald and Jenny in JUCONI for tips.   Typically popular music in Ecuador is reggaeton, salsa and bachata and so the reference images that we printed out and mounted into a poster included Daddee Yankee, Farruko and Romeo Santos, each image containing the artist's name in stylised fonts.  

2.  We prepared a welcome questionaire for the teens, with a brief introduction to what Art Club is followed by some simple introductiory questions about themselves: name, age, who do they live with, what do they enjoy doing in their free time, what music do they like, do they like to dance etc.   The answers from these confirmed that their favourite styles of music are salsa choque, reggaeton and salsa and that the majority enjoy dancing. 

3. We also printed out sheets of different lettering style examples and alphabets that we placed back to back in clear plastic sleeves.  

4.  During the workshop we welcomed the teens to the group and individually went through the introductory questinaire with them, in interview style, with Emily or I asking them the questions and writing down their answers.  This gave us some personalised moments with each teen. 

5. As a group we looked at the reference images, asking the teens which musicians they recognised and liked and drawing their attention to the lettering styles. 

6.  Each teen decided which of their names to write (here everyone typically has 2 first names and 2 surnames, the first being their father's and the second their mother's) and choose their prefered lettering font.  With individual support they then wrote out their letters in pencil first, going over it later with felt pen in black or colour as desired.  They mounted this onto card and gave it a coloured-tape border as desired. 

MATERIALS, session 1: poster of images of popular musicians with stylised names, sheets of different lettering alphabets in plastic sleeves, A4 paper, pencils, rulers, biros, felt pens, card, PVA, colourful tapes, guilotine, camera. 

N.B. At the end of this first session, during the standard photo documentation that we always do of the children with their work, we asked the kids to pose individually as a 'musician' against a white background.  Some kids choose to pose and some prefered not to have their photos taken.  We respected this, and were interested to observe that the same teens who asked not to be photographed in this first session were much more relaxed the following week and keen to be photographed.  This seems a really positive sign that the kids have already start to build trust with us as facilitators and the space.  We have also been happy to observe that one of these teens in the first week who was particularly defensive and uncommunicative is now much more confident and chatty and visibly enjoying the workshops.  Perhaps because he came to the first session expecting something 'babayish' having had some experience of the children's Art Club, but now he sees that the activities are very specifically designed for his age and above?

PROCESS Session 2, Youtube layout:  

1. Returning to the same musicians that we looked at the week before, Emily and I printed out screengrabs of songs of theirs from Youtube as reference:

2. We adapted one of these screengrabs to be a blank Youtube template using Photoshop and for those kids who had wanted their photograph taken, Emily digitlly cut out their photo and added it into the blank video window: 

3.  The kids used pencils, crayons, biros and felt pens to draw in a background around their photo, or, in the case of not having a photo, drew in an image from scratch. They filled in their song title, artist name and the other videos down the 'watch next' bar at the side.  

With some of the kids returning for this second workshop it was encouraging to observe a noticeable increase in confidence and communication already.  In the first session JUCONI psychologists Favio and Isabel had acompanied their kids to the space, but this week we were back to the typical Art Club team: Emily, Ronald and myself.  

Art Club 1.08: Our favourite foods!

Some of the favourite foods from our kids in Socio Vivienda 2(clockwise from top left, ending in centre): chicken with rice,salad and cola, fried fish and patacones, pineapple and strawberries, bolón with fried egg and coffee, crab with tortilla, prawn ceviche, chicken with salad and rice and a final prawn ceviche.  

THEME OF WEEK 1:08: Our favorite foods!

11th to 16th March 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To use a fun and simple activity to generate images for the carnival float of one of the most important things in our kid's lives….FOOD!  An ongoing joke (based in a some truth) is that the kids only come to Art Club for "refrigerio" ("refreshment") which is the snack and drink we hand out at the end of the sessions.   Whilst we know that the majority of our kids come for the art content of the sessions, hunger is a common fact amongst the children, in particular in Socio Vivienda, which means that yes, we have some children that come with food as their main focus, and even for those who we can see love the activities, snack time is an absolutely key moment in the session, coming at the end of the making, tidying away materials and cleaning the space.  

PROCESS: 

1. In our JUCONI office Emily and I googled and printed out images of the most popular typical Ecuadorian dishes and snack foods that we have had the pleasure of eating in our time here and know will be familiar to the kids, and mounted these up into a poster:

 A small selection of some of the typical foods here in Guayaquil that Emily and I have eaten and enjoyed here and that are familiar for our Art Club children (from left to right, top row to bottom): seco de pollo con arroz y maduro (chicken in a special lime and vegetable stew with rice and mature plantain, tortillas de yucca con cafe (fried tortillas made from grated cassava with coffee, panes de yucca con yogur (cheesy puff bread balls made with cassava flour, served with yoghurt), empanadas (the best of these are sold as 'Chilean' and come stuffed with savory fillings like cheese, ham, chicken, meat or even prawns if you're lucky, or in Playas!), pescado a la plancha con patacones (grilled fish with flat, pressed fried plantain), patacones (as before - they're so good they deserve putting in twice!), cangrejo (crab - served with a hammer alongside that is use to crack the shell of the body and legs.  You need a guide to explaing to you how to go about getting all the juicy flesh out, and to tell you which bit inside the main shell you can't eat.  Crab has an off-season,"veda de cangrejo", when you can't catch or eat it because the crabs are in their reproductive season (currently we're in this season), bolón con huevo frito y café (a oven baked or fried ball of plantain dotted with bits of cheese and/ or pork fat, served with a fried egg and coffee with no milk, just sugar), prawn ceviche (a cold and lime-y prawn 'soup' or salad, usually served with patacones, the prawns can be swapped or combined with fish, crab, mussels and any variety of other seafood.)   All DELICIOUS!!! :-)

2. Emily and I are made our examples: 

Emily's favourite dish (above right): "ceviche de camarón" (prawn soup)

My favourite(above left): "Bólon mixto con café" (cheese and pork fat ball of plantain, with a fried egg and coffee with sugar, no milk!)

3. We asked the children which of the foods on the poster they liked and what their favourite dishes are. Then they got started creating these dishes out of brightly coloured felts, starting with a plate or bowl, building up the dish from its various ingredients and finishing off with a glass or mug of their favourite drink and the cutlery of their choice.   

MATERIALS: poster of images of typical Ecuadorian foods, 2 facilitator examples, felt in a range of bright colours, including white, beige, pink, red, yellow and brown, scissors, glue/ UHU/ silicone, felt pens.

N.B. silicone is one of the best adhesives that we work with here, because it dries into a strong bond so quickly, much quicker than PVA.  One problem we face within the workshops is that almost all of the children like to eat and to play with the silicone.  They play with it by covering their hands in it, then opening and shutting the hands with the elastic effect that silicone has as it sets to a rubbery cosistency. Obviously as facilitators we discourage this, explaining to the children that firstly it is a chemical that can harm their skin or stomachs, and secondly it is expensive and we don't have endless funds.  Unfortunatley these warnings don't deter the children who will nod 'yes' in the moment and then the minute we turn our backs begin playing with it again.  Eventually, a few weeks ago Emily and I decided to cut silicone out of our materials box, and ran a few workshops with only PVA. The children were taken aback, but we told them the reason and they could see why.  So when we ran the first of these food making sessions in Sergio Toral, we ran it with PVA for the kids and UHU for Emily and I to use to secure any bits we might notice falling off.  However, there were so many pieces that were damaged in transit as a result of the more poorly sticking PVA, that we choose to use silicone again in Socio Vivienda, and with much better results, although of course we had to be very vigilant once again about the eating and playing. 

Favourite foods from the kids in Sergio Toral(clockwise from top left): prawns with patacones (fried plantain, squashed into flat discs at the half-way point of frying) and cheese, pizza with coffee, chicken with patacones and coca-cola, prawns with tortillas and juice, prawns with salad, tortilla and cola, patacones with prawns and jucie, corn tortillas with cheese and prawns and juice, prawn ceviche with limes and juice and another prawn ceviche.  There were also a good few bolones with fried eggs and coffee in this group, as well as more prawn ceviches, probably largely influenced by the facilitator examples, plus some chicken dishes and pasta dishes.

This was a really fun workshop for everyone.  With their natural love of food, the kids were really enthusiastic in their making and as Emily and I helped to draw and cut our various ingredients at top speed (in particular prawns and chicken drumsticks!) they chattered away about how delicious and tantalising their dishes were, whilst drawing, cutting and gluing.  Predictably we had all worked up a ravenous appetite by the end of the workshop and were quick to gobble up the food at snack time!

p.s. since the writing of this original post Emily and I have also made the patchwork "outfit" to dress the camioneta in and mounted all these foods on it.  We used felt in the four JUCONI colours: red, blue, yellow and green, and joined all the patches together with a combination of silicone, staples and velcro. 

Art Club 1.07: Family totem poles

THEME OF WEEK 1:07: Family totem poles

4th  to 9th March 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  For our new Art Club children to create another piece for the pop-up carnival float.  Having created images representing themselves we thought the next step should be to include their families and loved ones.  To achieve this we choose to use a typical Ecuadorian construction material: caña (thick cane) and to reference the Native American artform of totem poles. transform them into totem poles, which are seen in South America as well as in the USA.  

PROCESS: 

1. In the office courtyard, Emily and I washed and sanded down the canes thoughroughly, to remove the tiny spines that they are covered in (we learned this fact about cane the painful way, after I got an armful of spines while cleaning them.) 

Typical Ecuadorian cermaic figurines (centre) Valdivian Venus. 

2.   Emily and I downloaded and printed images of South American totem poles and typical Ecuadorian ceramic figurines, that we then mounted up into a poster for the children to reference during the workshop.  

3.  In Sergio Toral (above) the children worked with poster paints to illustrate their loved ones. Canes have natural divisions that fitted really well with the totem pole idea: groups of up to 4 children worked on each cane at a time to first draw their chosen person's outline into one of the sections in pencil and then to paint it.  One group of children chose to paint the whole cane in bands of solid colour first, then to paint JUCONI's stylised stick figures ontop in white at the end.  

This was an incredibly messy session, with paint getting over everyone as well as the floor, tables and chairs.  Some of the children and certainly we facilitators found this stressful.  The reason it was so much more messy than even our usual paint sessions was perhaps because of the children having to work simultaneuosly on single canes, and the large scale of the activity.  As the space of CNH that we use in Socio Vivienda is both smaller and more immaculate, being painted white, and as the children in Socio are typically more chaotic and inclined to fight, Emily and I decided that the sensible choice would be to work with oil pastels rather than paint.  

4. In Socio Vivienda (above) the children also started by drawing their figures into one of the sections of the canes and then coloured them in with oil pastels, defining the figures with a black or dark navy outline.  

In Sergio Toral another issue we had noticed was that the freshly painted totems got badly scratched in transit from the workshop to JUCONI's offices because of the back of the van being heavily loaded and the terrain we cross being incredibly bumpy because of frequent deep potholes in the earthen roads.  The solution to this for Socio Vivienda was to bring large sheets with us and wrap the canes individually as we loaded them into the van. This worked much better.   

MATERIALS: Reference poster showing totems and ceramic figurines. Sergio Toral: 10 x canes, poster paint, paintbrushes, bowls, palettes and cloths, paper and pencils. Socio Vivienda: 10 x canes (plus 10 x canes from Sergio Toral to work in the sections not yet painted) pencils, paper, oil pastels in a range of bright colours and also including black and dark navy. Large sheets of cloth. 

In a questionaire about their neighbourhoods in the same week we asked the older children in our newly opened Thursday afternoon teenager's group, "Who are the most important people in your community?"  Their answers included "my Mum", "my Dad", "my family", "my friends", "my Granny", one girl said "the co-ordinators" and explained that these are local peacekeepers, people who contain problems in the street.  These were lovely simple honest answers, and affirming to hear after seeing the parents, grandparents, siblings and friends appear throughout this totem pole activity.  It was also interesting because we had actually (misguidedly!) wondered would the children's replies include perhaps authoritarian figures, (church leaders?  teachers? gang leaders?).  A couple of kids even replied "you", gesturing at we cmap volunteers and our JUCONI colleagues.  So that was a really heartwarming moment for Emily and I! 

Art Club 1.06: A look in the mirror

THEME OF WEEK 1:06: A look in the mirror

25th February and the 3rd March 2015

Art Club with Fundación Junto Con Los Niños - JUCONI 

facilitated by the Charlotte Miller Art Project in Guayaquil, Ecuador

IDEA AND AIMS:  To continue with the introductions in the new Art Club groups through a task that has the interesting addional element of using light as one of the materials in the workshop:  each child creating an image representing themselves using colourful transparent plastic sheets cut out and glued onto clear acetate.  

PROCESS: 

1. Small children work as a team to decorate a large frame front and back with patches of tisse paper in shades of blue and grey. 

2.  Older children work individually to create an image of themself (and any small brothers and sisters who may be decorating the frame), by cutting out simple shapes from various colours of tranparent plastic sheets, and layering them up to create a funll-length self-portrait.  Write names and ages on the acetate and add in any details to the image with a permanent marker. 

3. Back in the office facilitators join all of the children's self-portraits together using transparent sellotape, and grouping the children into siblings, cousins, neighbours and sectors.  Mount the whole piece in the frame, ready for addition to the JUCONI carnival cart.

Explaining the process by looking at facilitator examples in Sergio Toral, pointing out how the sun shining through the papers makes the colours ome to life and the layering effect mixes new shades of the colours used:

Decorating the frame in Sergio Toral: 

Working on individual self-portraits: 

Using light as a material in the artistic process: Emily's beautiful experiments, encouraging the children to play with their work in the bright sunlight in Socio Vivienda: 

BACKGROUND REFERENCE FROM GUAYAQUIL:

1. Family members on car windows (below).  

It is really common here in Guayaquil to see stickers of family members adorning the back windos of cars, typically in white cartoon styles.  You also often read the names of the different family members on back or side windows, including mum and dad, and all of the individual children.   For me, this is a really sweet and "tierno" ('affectionate') detail of family life here in Guayaquil, and it always makes me smile to spot cars decorated like this:

2. Giant stained glass 'windows'. 

In a couple of spots around Guayaquil you can see these huge frames mounted with colourful stained glass scenes of Guayaquileño history.  This one is mounted just outside the bus station Terminal Terrestre, where you can catch a bus out of the city to anywhere else in Ecuador.   Similar to these installations providing a window into the story of Guayaquil, we see this piece of work from the kids as a 'mirror reflecting' or a 'window into' their lives and families.  Both public and Art Club pieces of working interacting with and dependent on the strong sunlight typical at this spot on the equator line.   

and that's the story of how we arrived at this: