Thursday, February 15, 2007

Letters from a sugar cane plantation

11-5-2001
Hello my esteemed wife. How are you? Everything is good with me. I hope you are well too. Excuse me for the change of subject, Maria, please continue the work on the house. Buy two doors and put one in the back and one for the kitchen. Put the soil in the back too. I am sending 200R. I really want to end work here and leave this place…
Jose

October 1999
My unforgetable, dear spouse. Kisses for you. I received your card and felt like a lovesick teenager…I am at this level with love for you. But we must work for security now, for us, and our children.
Alô [“Hello,” One word written in Jose’s handwriting. Jose is illiterate and his friends write for him.]
Hello, my daughter, Leticia. You will receive a box of bonbons as a present from your caring father. And two packets of sweets…I feel much longing for you and my children. This is what it is, my dear. Later we will meet again.

A hug for Leticia
A kiss for Warlie

Jose

Wednesday, February 14, 2007

FFF project


CPCD sent me on a scavenger hunt like mission to illustrate a new project that is still in the development stages. It is a project that will valorize local products and stimulate the local economy. I photographed things like leather, cotton, and tobaco. Tobaco was difficult to find. I ended up going from farm to farm in a rural area nearby..."I dont have tabaco but I know somebody who used to have a few plants...." On my way trampled through a field of sugar cane, saw a chicken attacked by a fox, and contracted another bout of lice...but eventually found a baby tobaco plant behind an old farm house between a mango tree and a chicken pen.







Reis

This is a singing group called folio de reis in one of my favorite spaces in this city, a very small church in the community that was formed many years ago by a group of fugitive slaves. I am working on a short documentary about this group with my research assistant. Yesterday a woman who sings with them came up to me and thanked me. She said that the DVD I made of the first cut circulated to almost every house in the neighborhood. I thought, wow, I didnt know that so many people had DVD players.

Alfabeto do Ser Criança (the alphabet of Project: To be a Child)

H=horta (garden)

p=pedra (stone)



B= Banhiero (bathroom) G=galho (branch)

One of my most significant challenges here is living within these yellow walls. The home and household I live in is very different than the home of an average resident of this town. Most homes have a tank of drinking water that is given to them by the government. I have a swimming pool that collects at least 10 different species of bugs each day. The constant transition between the home within these walls and the world outside is exhausting for me. I spend most of my time visiting homes that do not have enough food to feed everyone and then return to my home that has freezer full of beef that could feed at least 10 families, a domestic worker who insists on ironing my t-shirts, and a satalite television (that doesnt pick up local TV stations). In order to maintain perspective on my life and my purpose here, I rely on the hope that I am doing my best to do something helpful...otherwise this reality would be too much for me.