Favellas, Catholic Church, Afro-Brasilian Mysticism, Etc.

When I leave my bedroom in the mornings I open my door to find a diminuitive woman in her late sixties. Sometimes she's watching TV. She watches 30 minutes of church every morning. Sometimes she's walking around talking to someone that no one else can see. Other times she's laughing along with children's cartoons or waving her hands in the air as she dances alone in the quiet of her living room. Today, when I opened my door, prior to being electrocuted (not death penalty style, but with a sudden jolt of energy as I tried to turn off the shower), I saw her being laid hands upon by a woman who practices some sort of energy moving/healing technique. The music in the background was akin to the sounds of Enya. I live in a Catholic household, but Catholicisim in Brazil has some very close ties with Afro-Brasilian mysticisim.

Carlos, the adult son (he's 40ish) of my new host parents (o pai rises early, retires early, and spends his in between time cooking in the kitchen and chatting with people in the street), is a simple man with a lot of love in his heart. On Saturday he took me to meet some people that he thought might be good connections for me, and who are also his friends. We went to Ilha da Pintada, to attend a women's ministry group which feautred a panel concerning domestic violence. The discussion was an active attempt to inform abused people about their rights outlined in the Maria da Penha law. The chapel is located in a favella (a community of homes built out of whatever people can find--discarded doors, rope, laundry lines, scrap wood and scrap metal--and peopled by folks whos main source of income is gained by collecting the trash from around the city: cans, cardboard and plastic.) just at the edge of the lake, and is mostly windows. The favella is just opposite a very wealthy neighborhood that you can see in pictures like the one to the right (which incidentally, I did not take because my camera is broke-ass). We were lucky, that some of the lake water had receeded since last weeks rain. The group of women (and Carlos) ranged in age from 2-70, and thing that was most touching about the whole event is that at the beginning of the service each person had to get up to hand a "peace candle" to the person at his or her right.

After the service Matilda, an organizer for Movimento Sem-Terra, asked if I would be interested in working on a program to teach English to the youth in the favella starting with 3 young people that she knows. I could stay for any where between 3 more months to a year. So I'm thinking about it. Before I left, I was told that poverty here is like nothing I'd ever seen before, and it's true. Favellas are the biggest open secret in Brazil. But despite the rampant drug and sex trafficing problems, the majority of the people living in poverty are honest hard working, family oriented folks who simply do not have access to education or a social system designed to serve them. So should I stay here and align myself with education and workers rights movements, or should I go home and do the same type of work? My method of fighting the good fight wouldn't change--I'd still be working in the field of literacy, but I'd be doing in a developing country, along with my own foreigness. Thoughts? I'd be glad to discuss. Especially if anyone has something to say about Paulo Friere--I was bound to get around to reading Pedagogy of the Oppressed sometime, right?

While I'm still in the shadow of decision: first stop, organic farm, next stop the beach, then World Social Forum and then The Future. I wish it would stop doing all of this looming.

I will assume that I am now writing to the ghosts of people who used to read this blog. Big love, ya'll.

Temporary Abode, Life Stories

Two things: One: I moved, and this situation is a much better fit. Jacque was generous, and I appreciate her, but Cinthia is more of a roommate than a host mom, and overall that's better for me. I live in a neighborhood called Petropolis. It looks like this. I'll be here for 3 weeks, and then I'll move in with another host family. I don't know where, and I don't know how the hosts will be.

Cinthia, my host, is sweet. She watches romantic comedies and offers me chocolate when I'm sitting nearby. She chats about boys and her friends. She majored in tourism and works for a hotel. She spends her evenings chatting with her neighbors who welcomed me on my first night here by taking me out dancing with them for to celebrate a birthday.

Two: The ladies of Namaskar finished the first phase of the book. They've written responses to prompts like these (initially I wrote them in Portuguese, but that wouldn't make sense for you so here they are in English):

In the space below, please write or design a letter to your body. Tell how you feel about your body. Include why you love your body and what you remember about your past. Include, also, a promise for the future.

Please write or design about a time when you knew that your life was important. Who loves you? How do you know?

In general, I'm not a fan of prompts, but these ladies barely read, and writing is more difficult for them than reading. They don't think in methaphors. They think literally and mostly about work. It can't be called a writing workshop, but it did start some interesting conversations and a lively show and tell. I count that as a success. So far, I've read about a husband who is the father is wife never had, and I've seen a 5 part panoramic drawing of a woman's life over 50 years; I've read testaments to the joys of cleaning laundry and snippets of stories about the adoration of grandchildren.

Now, I could let the project end with the women taking their books home and putting them on some shelf. That might be fine for them, but for me, this project needs to go a little farther. I'm not sure what I can do with it though. I could write a paper about the process and my observations, but what would any conclusions I draw be relevant to? What I am doing with these women can't be called teaching. It's more like I’m facilitating.

Tomorrow we'll paint cardboard book covers and take pictures of each artist. The whole thing is akin to the 826CHI style, but it is for literacy level adults. Any ideas? Anybody wanna talk it out with me?

I'll try to write about the awesome amazing 55 Feira do Livros, and I'll take pictures of the turnsiles at the bank.

Terra da Carolina e As Laranjes

Until yesterday I hadn’t climbed a tree since I was invincible—somewhere between the ages of 7 and 20. 7 September marks the independence of Brazil from Portugal so there were many celebrations around the country this weekend; my host family decided to celebrate the three day weekend quietly by driving northwest up to the mountains near Bom Princìpio to the land that my host sister, Carolina, will eventually inherit. The pressure change only caused a minor headache, and it was worth it to see the hundreds of kilometres of fields of grapes and the tiny artisan wine factory. This region of Porto Alegre, just south of Farroupilha and Caxias do Sul, was settled by Italian immigrants in the 1920s, and German immigrants settled to the southeast of São Sebastião do Caì around the same time. Now you can see the cows and sheep smattered around the mountains on enormous square plots spiralling up toward the sun.

The little house on Carolina’s land is an original 3 bedroom, from the 20s with shuttered windows and orange trees. It is maintained by a woman and her daughter who live literally a holler away. When we arrived, the day before yesterday, we went for a walk, and Jacque, my host mother marvelled that before roads existed (at a point the pavement ends and the dirt roads end and what’s left is a path) immigrants walked up the steep slopes and planted and harvested and raised children and animals. I watched the ducks and looked closely at the local flowers and trees. When we walked back to the house I took a nap in the hammock. The rest of the night, while Carolina watched Aladdin and Jacqueline sorted through pictures and toys and bits from her past, I lazed about the house, reading and thinking--how refreshing it is to be disconnected for a day or two. And in the morning we took our time.

Instead of rushing to prepare for a day of scratching off tasks on a to-do list, I took Jacque’s suggestion to take some fruit to the children at my project; I set off to the tangerine tree in the field nearby with a basket big enough for 50 tangerines. 20 cows grazed 20 metres away, and after I figured out how to open the barbed wire fence and remembered that cows are scardy-cat herbivores I proceeded to shake the tree, and as I filled my basket I payed no attention to the fact that the cows were closing in.

I heard a moo just a little closer than I was prepared for and turned to stare in to the peripheral vision of a pregnant lady cow. I stood still for probably two full minutes while the cows ate all of the fallen tangerines that were not in my basket, and then I moved toward the tree, and all of the cows turned around to run away. Jacque and Carolina came to join me, and I climbed the tree and pulled off tangerines dropping them into the basket below as I did. Jacque shook the tree, the cows came back and grazed on the excess.

Nobody gets out of life without doing some work, and I’ve done a lot so far. Hell, picking fruit is a job for some people, and it isn’t an easy one, but when it is leisure, it is delightful. I’ve been working too hard for too long, but if that’s what I had to do for this pay off, then I would do it again.

Host Family

I met my host family and my contact person tonight. They are all lovely people. Jacqueline, the host mother, is a Professor. She writes books about education and social justice! She's elegant and eccentric. I'm looking forward to getting to know her. Her daughter, Carolina, 11, is delightful. She's learning English in school. I'm lucky to be living with an 11-year-old; she'll teach me everything she knows, and she'll make me laugh.

My contact person is also 25. She works in an accounting department for a bank. She's wry and witty, and has a hearty laugh for such a small person. I think we'll get along very well.

Mom, she's an Aquarius, too (February 8th).

On Saturday I'll go to their house in Santana. Apparently, they have a Yorkshire terrier and a swimming pool. Also, it is in a residential area that's a 10 minute walk from shops and bars and restaurants. I'm holding out hope for a bookstore--any kind of bookstore.

Jacqueline has a friend (whose name I don't recall) who is a piano teacher, so maybe I'll be able to practice while I'm here.

So next week, I begin my projects, find a Capoeira class and start Portuguese classes. This may be the single best decision I've ever made in my life.