MLK JR

“I refuse to accept the view that mankind is so tragically bound to the starless midnight of racism and war that the bright daybreak of peace and brotherhood can never become a reality…

I believe that even amid today’s mortar bursts and whining bullets, there is still hope for a brighter tomorrow….

I believe that what self-centered men have torn down, men other-centered can build up….

I still believe that we shall overcome.”

Dr Martin Luther King Jr.
Acceptance of Nobel Peace Prize
December 10 1964

I received this quote today in the mail from my friend, Marit, who is doing a wonderful project with children in Africa. It reminded me that my mother went to the white house last weekend. My mother, Jane Fonda, and hundreds of others who believe that things need to change. Bless their hearts. We all have some work to do.

It has been challenging to get a sense of where the directors of CPCD want there organization to go, what topics will be most prominent in the future, what are the social problems that they are targeting. I guess what I would like to do for them is use my skills in some way that would help them get where they want to be.

I have been working in a small town that is a long journey away from the central office---the Chinese proverb “The mountains are high and the Emperor is far, far away.” is a good way to describe my relationship with the directors of this organization and my supervisor.

I spent the last few days in Belo Horizonte, visiting the main office. I just showed up even though the office was supposed to be closed during the January holiday. I learned some things there…

I also talked to the director for a few minutes.
We talked about poetry and folklore. I worked on a project with a group of teenagers who participate in CPCD´s projects. They made audio-visual interpretations of poems written by local poets. We were discussing how I might expand this project.

We also discussed this question:
Como podemos engarrafar a água do mar sem perder o azul?
[How can we bottle seawater without loosing its blue color?]



I think documentarians/artists consider this problem a lot.
But, in this case, he was talking about the future of CPCD.
Para nós a sistematização é uma epécie de engarrafameto.
[For us, systematizing (and i think, documenting) our programs is a way we can preserve our organization and bring it other places (sort of like religion)]

He told me that they are having a beginning of the year meeting in Curvelo (a different city not near Araçuaí). I invited myself to the meeting and told him that I would document it in some creative way. He said Ok. I think i am going to ask the staff to make visual representations of their hopes for CPCD´s future.

research assistant

“When he was a kid his father went to cut sugar cane every year. This is when we lived on the farm. When his father came home, after months of working in São Paulo, L would run screaming and crying. It always took a while for him to get used to his father’s presence.”

L’s mother told me this story one day when I was sitting with her while she was cooking.

L has been my research assistant for the last month and a half. He and I have worked on several short projects together and, have most recently been interviewing men in his neighborhood who go to cut sugarcane.

It has been interesting to observe our different angles on the subject. We clearly have different interests. I ask more general questions about the laborer’s relationships to his friends and family. What is the experience like to be away from your families? What is the work like? How is it different than employment near home? L, on the other hand, is more interested in details (ones I wouldn’t necessarily think of asking). He always asks---so, what is the food like in the lodgings? Is there entertainment, televisions? Are you treated badly by authorities? How much money can you make in a month if you work really hard? What was it like the first time you went away to work?

L is twenty-one years old. He has repeated years in school several times so he is currently at the 8th grade level in school. Although he says he is going to study more, it is clear that he is at the point where he is weighing the benefits of more education against the money he would make if he went to work fulltime.

I think L is a good example of what many men his age are thinking about in this city. Many of them ask, why study if all I am just going to end up going to cut sugar cane?

night bus

I was moving in and out of alert consciousness, heading back along the winding roads to Araçuaí on the bus last night. I was somewhere between a dream and moonlit mountains when the bus suddenly swerved and tossed me towards the isle. Someone in the front of the bus yelled “Segura!” [Hold on!] A surge of fear struck my belly and I grabbed the seat in front of me. I heard loud banging and grating from underneath and a strong smell of burning rubber filtered through the windows. As the bus slowed and pulled to the side of the road, the shock that had entered my body had fizzled and dispersed so rapidly that I actually felt calm by the time the bus stopped and the engine died. This calmness surprised me. I felt a kind of relief, almost pleasure. I thought, well, good, it will take them a while to fix this one. It took them more than two hours the last time this happened. I have a chance to catch some peaceful sleep without the constant vibration of the bus in motion.