Thursday, December 07, 2006

oficina de vídeo


So, who are you? Who knows the history of the French Ballet?
I know someone who knows but she left for Belo Horizonte yesterday.
So, who has the key to the old the church?
The man who lives in that house with the brown door.
We had mud houses. Do you know what mud is? I remember.
No, I can’t tell you the origin of these old circle games. We didn’t have time to play. Ask someone else.
We were all dirty, trying to get as close as we could.
When heard the train coming we all ran down the hill, no matter what we were doing.
I would bring my toothbrush with me.
Oh that was a long time ago. This one is of when I was queen for the first time. I have some other photographs too. Look, here is a really old one.
I can sing a few lines for you. But the last few words escaped.
Let me show you the big sword and the drums.
You play this one like this. The other like this.
Climb to the top of the tree. There are plenty ripe ones there.
We can make some really good juice with those.

Bairro Novo


On top of a hill that overlooks Araçuaí, Geraldo, my host father, climbs onto a mound of dirt and asks me to join him. “Look,” he says, pointing to a section of the city where dirt roads are organized in grids. Most of the houses are unfinished. There are piles of bricks in front of every house and a string of street lights trailing off along a deserted, muddy road, waiting for more houses to fill empty lots. But people are living in this unfinished neighborhood. We hear laughter, music, and televisions. “I started to sell my father’s land in 1994.” He says. “This is the New Neighborhood.”