Pedro Ipina can not help but be hopeful. He cannot help but dream the future is better than the past. After twenty years of terrible war in El Salvador, you could paint the bodies in the river but why? You would be better off to dream that the rivers were heaven and all the bodies were fish swimming toward paradise.

You would be better off when you look over the city, over the patch work of broken buildings piled on buildings, the noise of a million conversations, the sidewalk crumbling under your feet, to imagine that each color is a soul, each sound a prayer and that the crumbling concrete is the earth reclaiming its soul.

You would better off to say the girl in the lighthouse is its protector like the Tolapo in the tree, that when she jumped it was to prove she was an angel and that she shared her wings with the sun and moon, that became a true Tolapo.

Pedro would tell you, if your heart is willing you would see that you are a Tolapo. You would see that we are the family Tolapo. Pedro would tell you he paints to save you. He is your Tolapo. He paints to save the world.

He would tell you to dream and then like flowers sprung from the magician’s palm, let your dream become a beautiful Tolapo and then you too can save the world.