você não é daqui, é?

embora para São Paulo

2007-07-23T03:56:00.001-07:00

I went to thank Maria for the party she hosted for me in Nova Esperança last night and to bring the kids chocolate chip cookies. I told Maria how I felt sincerely grateful to be able to celebrate with so many of the kids that I worked with in the neighborhood. I was really impressed by the party. There was an enormous cake and about twenty children. The kids went crazy, and, as usual, pulled my camera out of my hands and photographed each other dancing to loud axé music (this is the DVD you love to dance to, right Emma?) licking the last bits of cake icing off their napkins, crying, screaming, kicking each other, and playing with fire. All of my 4-7 year old friends have mastered the basic functions of a Cannon 20D. Good luck to any other photographer who tries to photograph in this neighborhood in the future. The kids will surely expect to be in charge of the camera.

“Did you get home all right last night? We were worried about you leaving late.”

“Don’t worry, it was fine, I am used to leaving here in the dark. “

It’s the truth, at this point I know the roads, I know every gaping hole that could puncture my bike tire, even in spots where the dim streetlights don’t reach. I know which roads to avoid, which houses have dogs that bark at me. I know who lives in every house and everyone knows me.

Ricke ran outside to grab my knapsack and search for my camera. He pulled my back out of the basket, knocked over my bike and then came running back into the house. Maria said that she wants to know where my city is.

“I have a map in my kitchen, lets go look.” But it is only a map of Latin America. I point to a space on the blue wall way up above the map. That’s where my city is.

We sit for a while talking about how difficult it would be to get there from here by bus, and why an airplane is scary but much more efficient.

I eventually turn back to the children who are making at least 20 photographs a minute with my digital camera.

“I want to let you know that I am leaving for my home in the United States and that I will never forget you.” I said to Ricke and his little three-year-old sister, Iba.

“Iba doesn’t really understand what you mean.” Maria says, “She just doesn’t get it that you wont be visiting us anymore.”

Maria stoops down to the eye level of her daughter and says,

“Iba, Emma is going far away. Emma is going to São Paulo. Go give her a hug.”

Iba comes out from her hiding place under the bed, hops onto my lap and gives me a hug.

“Iba doesn’t understand what it means to go home to the United States, but she understands what it means, ‘to go to São Paulo.’ For her São Paulo means the distance between her and her father. São Paulo is where people go and don’t come back for a really long time. In fact this morning she asked me if her father was coming back tomorrow. She is young, but she knows what São Paulo means.”

dry

2007-07-13T09:40:00.000-07:00

when you step on the road a cloud of dust puffs up around your foot. The air is dry. There is no moisture to keep dirt firmly on the ground.

saturday

2007-07-10T07:11:00.000-07:00

I woke up this morning to the sound of loud voises. something exciting.
I turn over, feeling particularly peaceful. I will stay in bed ten more minutes.
a pear and a few crackers for breakfast,
I looked outside, There were about 30 horses in front of my house.
Emma would you like to mount? Today is the church service for cowboys?
Umm no thanks, I am scared to fall. I prefer my horse with two wheels.
These are the horses from the farm. Oh, didn’t know you had so many.
Yeah there will be about a thousand people on horseback today in the city.
I packed my backpack and put it in the basket of my bike.
Off to the neighborhood, with sun glasses
Just opened an icecream store. Here, try some, we make it here right in the store.
And also why don’t you dance in the square dance with us this Saturday. There is practice tonight. Ok.
I pass by Deborah doing the nails of the old woman next door and drinking a beer.
Emma you work on Saturdays? Do you want a beer? Do you drink?
My child is asleep can you come back later to take her photo? Sure.
Let me play your father’s voice for you.
I noticed that it wasn’t her father’s voice before she did. I still felt really embarrassed.
I will return later today with the correct cd.
Arrived at the house of the two sisters-in-law, whose husbands are both cutting sugar.
Just wait a few minutes while we make ourselves pretty. Emma, I want to show my legs this time.
I sit in their living room, a framed portrait painting of grandparents. A telivision tv globo.
Race cars, the pista, car number two is winning. Cars arrive in the ditch and little men with hlepmets race out to change the wheels.
I want to send one to my mother too. Who lives far away. I am not taking advantage of you am I?
And one alone like this? Just my face?
L, she was with her mom. Her mom quit her job. She was getting home too late at night.
This cat appeared today. All of the others died, so we thought we would take this skinny one in.
Pulled l’s hair tight into a braid. She didn’t even cry. A bright orange dress. One picture with the cat, the other in front of the bush.
Return. Look go to the praça and you will see all the horses from the front
a stampeed of cowboys drinking pinga. Lunch by the pool
Emma you speak like an Indian. me eu. eu me eu me eu. thanks.
Return to the neighborhood. Amabole was taking a bath
You left your lense cap here two weeks ago. It was underneath the covers of the bed.
Glad you kept it for me.
Pass by lu’s house, a man at the bar with bear feat toes completely turned outward. you dont think that´s funny? Everyone having a laugh about him. He didn’t care. he was too drunk.
Burning trash at in n´s front yard. b swinging on the knot that she tied all by herself. a dance party, monica and jeje show up. All six kids bath in glicinias house, she heats the water while the rest of us dance to extremely loud video of a show that was in aracuai a few months ago. i cant dance, my back is killing me. they did the exams at the hospital and then the doctor left before he could anylze the results. i´ll have to go back next week.

A piece online at Folha de São Paulo

2007-07-04T05:12:00.000-07:00

The newspaper, Folha de São Paulo, put an audio/photo piece of my work online at the following link:
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/treinamento/novoemfolha43/te20070629043.shtml

Ouça mensagem de pai a filho, antes de ir à usina de cana-de-açúcar passar oito meses. Pelo menos um em cada cinco homens deixa todos os anos Araçuaí para trabalhar como cortador de cana.

And an article about my work at the following link:
http://www1.folha.uol.com.br/folha/treinamento/novoemfolha43/te20070629021.shtml

noite

2007-07-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

sumiu

2007-07-02T11:11:00.000-07:00

duas cartas de Schnoor para São Paulo

minha bisicleta sumiu.
um cortador de cana que me gostou.

ela estava cansada.

the machine

2007-06-18T07:03:00.000-07:00

We met a sugar cane cutting machine by the side of the road. The driver was changing its blades.

A sharp blade becomes blunt within twelve hours of cutting sugar cane. Dry sugar cane eats the iron blades faster then wet sugar cane.

ash on the ceiling

2007-06-18T06:51:00.000-07:00

A message from a sugar cane worker in São Paulo for his children in Northeast Brazil.

Hi Francisco, Washington, and Stefanie. This is your father here speaking. I want to say that I miss you very much. I hope you miss me too. I can see and feel the moment when I am going to return and hug you. Washington and Stefanie, you are at an age when it is difficult to understand, but I want to explain to you that I am here working towards an objective for you. My greatest dream is to be able to give you what you need. I want to give to my children what I never had when I was little. I know that the dream of a father is to give the best to his children. But my father is not able to give things because he doesn’t have the financial conditions to give. But if he were able to give, he would give. So, I am going to do everything to give the best to you.

Department of Sanitation, São Paulo:
[Our role] is to observe their living conditions. We look at the places where they live to see if it is adequate, if it offers the minimum conditions of hygienic health for them, if they have treated water to drink, water to take a bath, bed to sleep in, refrigerator, these things. Because they are very [pause for lack of words] because their hygiene is minimal. They lack hygiene. You know, the objective for them is to work and make money.

…. there is a lot of exhaustion, heart attacks, …this happens to many of them because the time for rest that they have does not make up for the energy that they exert in their work…for example they rest for one hour and work for 8 or 9 hours…in reality, they are athletes, but an athlete has a balanced diet. [Athletes] visit nutritionists. They use a lot of energy but their diet is adequate for their activities. A sugar cane cutter from the rural area, who comes from outside this city to work during the sugar cane harvest, does the same work as an athlete, but the rice and beans that they eat is not balanced and is not adequate for the type of work that they do.

Department of Mental Health, São Paulo:
What I can observe here is that many end up getting involved with other women and leave children here, I’d like to say, make families here and then leave. This is a really big distructive social patern. Drinking alcohol too. (eles bebem por disadaptação). They drink because of their inability to adapt to the changes here. They live badly, in bad living conditions. (disagradavidade). Sometimes when we see an entire family that comes from a poor region, many don’t do prenatal check-ups, we see a lot of malnutrition, children come with learning disabilities, many with really severe cognitive deficiencies…. Sometimes we start a treatment without being able to finish because the family goes away again.

I think that cutting sugar cane is really heavy, tough work, …they live a long way from their families, in a place totally different. I think the mental suffering must be enormous. But they don’t come to the health post, they (da um conta) they take care of this with (comprimentos) pills/medicine of drink and finding relationships with other women. This is the way that they reduce the loneliness…. They medicate themselves in this way…

Department of Basic Health, São Paulo:
The most common accidents are cuts with the knife, you know, the one that they use as a tool. The cuts happen mostly in the inferior parts of the body, limbs, on the foot, or the hand. Sometimes the leaves of the sugar cane cut a worker’s eye. Now, with the regulations about the equipment that they use, the incidents have been significantly reduced. About 5 years ago, we saw many more accidents, many more severe cuts and breaks of limbs. …Recently one worker I attended had a leaf cut his eye. He was wearing protective glasses but somehow the leaf cut his eye anyway and he lost his vision….

“But does is make our food sweeter?” I ask.

Lunch with the three priests

the old pensive one
the one with tight lips
the active one, beaming with warmth.

Beans, sweet potatoes, soup,
Chicken, bread, and fish.

Stories of this morning’s deaths
Stories of this morning’s births.
Stories of this morning’s hopes and prayers.

The caged birds singing,
Ash began to fall from the ceiling
peppering the white rice.

I remember India and the cremation ground.
Ash pouring through the windows of the professor’s home.
“Is it a barbeque?” my little spaceman asked.

It makes the air thicker like our soup.
It makes our lungs weaker, our breaths shallow
It is the burning sugar cane makes the ash, the first priest explains.

The second priest says, It ruins the soil
It destroys all other species
that hide in the rows of sugar cane.

It lines our ceiling during the harvest,
darkens the sky, adds the third priest.
It enters the chapel, leaving a dark shadow
On the face of nossa senora.

ants in the sugar sample

2007-06-13T08:09:00.000-07:00

These are images from this morning. Perhaps i am looking for emotion in the cana itself....
A migrant worker wrote a book, actually a dailing journal to send to his family. i visited baracks. six men in a small room. who cooks? i asked. they laughed. no one has chairs, they sit on water bottles that they take with them to the fields. they offered me a water bottle and covered it with a towel. one worker remained standing as we talked. it was really dark and i was scared even though i knew i was safe with elias, my friend a big strong man and my teammate in this expedition. i didnt know it but yesterady was valintines day here. the recordings of the migrant workers express their love for those quem ficou lá.
yesterday I visited a sugar-alcohol plant called São Marino. They had ants in the sugar samples that they offered us. They wouldnt let me take photographs. The woman who i am staying with calls me irma because she thinks i am a nun. a nun with a lot of interesting digital equipment...a nun who left her rosary beads at home...i met one of those men in those white trucks today who said, do you have permission to be taking those photographs. permission from who?
my vision from the motor cycle helmet was poor. scratches on the plexi glass. a blur of sugar green, stench of manure and the rising sun.

my face is covered with a thin layer of dirt.

Archives of the Pastoral dos Migrantes

2007-06-13T08:05:00.000-07:00

These are images from the archives of the Pastoral dos Migrantes in Guariva, São Paulo. 1980-1995.

pastoral dos migrantes

2007-06-10T13:41:00.000-07:00

This was a meeting of migrant workers who live in Guarriba, a city that sits in the middle of a sea of sugar cane. These cortadores da cana come from the north of the country and rent houses in the city. Others live in lodgings provided by the usinas, the plantations. In the next three days I am going to visit about 14 workers to make audio/visual letters to send to their children.

2007-06-10T13:35:00.000-07:00

sou eu.

sugar cane

2007-06-08T13:53:00.000-07:00

workers earn 11-16 centavos per meter that they cut and it is normal for a worker to cut 200-400 meters per day.

for a worker to earn 1 mil reais (500 dollars) per month they ahve to cut 6 tons per day.

btween 1998-2003 this region of SP had 10.8 thousand square qilometers of sugar cane.

there are 250 thousand sugar cane workers who migrate to work in the usinas of são paulo.

in 2014, it will be against the law to burn sugar cane. this means that the plantations will have to use machines to harvest the plants. where will the workers go?

2007-06-01T11:24:00.000-07:00

These are photos that i made in collaboration with three children. I started working with sound too. I sending the childrens´ voices along with these photos, drawings and letters from the mothers. I sent about 30 letters to São Paulo this week. Next week I am going to visit Usinas (sugar cane plantations) with the pastoral dos migrantes. I am going to see if making letters with the migrant workers will be possible.

I like the way this work is going, however, it is really challenging, and more complex than I could have ever imagined.

2007-05-25T09:07:00.000-07:00

Maria´s Story:

“ ‘Sometimes I feel more lonely when you are here with me than when you are away cutting sugar cane,’ that’s what I say to my husband when he comes home drunk. And I am not lying. That is really how I feel.” Maria, Tiago and I were sharing biscuits that Maria bought from the man with the wheelbarrow who knocked over the cardboard box sign that says Hair Jel for Sale. Maria said they sell hair gel in the city and not here, in this neighborhood, New Hope. She bought gel in the city to sell here. She hopes to get customers.
She continued like this, her eyes brimming with tears.
“Its not the kind of drinking that brings violence to our family. You see, he always comes home and cares for us lovingly. But I sense that this love is empty love. The love of a drunken person who can do anything without meaning to do it. It is a kind of unconvincing love that doesn’t do much for me. I am just lucky that I was able to have Tiago after aborting two children. He is someone to take care of and he makes my loneliness and my depression more bearable.“
Tiago throws his biscuit on the floor and screams at the top of his lungs. Clearly, he is annoyed that his mother is not giving him her full attention. Maria gets up from her chair and pulls a thin short branch from a tree near the doorstep. She returns and lifts the twig above her head, threatening her son. Tiago smiles and lifts his hand above his head too but then retreats to the back of his chair when his mother thrusts her fist in his direction. “Tiago, I will hit you. This isn’t a game. Just wait until Emma leaves!” She lets her arm fall on the table and taps the twig on the brim of a cup. “Emma, remember that day when you saw me dragging Tiago across the soccer field while he was having a temper tantrum, boy did I give him a tapping on the back of his legs when we got home.” Tiago, seeming quite unaffected by his mother’s threats, makes the sound of a dog barking. Arrf arrf. I recognize this as my signal to get down on my hands and knees. I always bark with Tiago when I visit this household. “Anyway, “ Maria says, “sometimes I think our relationship won’t work. When he is away, he says he doesn’t drink, he says he is too concerned with not spending any money. At least, when he calls, he speaks sincerely and seems sober…
But, for the little time when he is at home, he scares me. One day he was in a fight and came home with the cartilage and bones of his hands showing through big gashes in his skin. A cut along his stomach and a gash on his leg…I tell him that drinking might kill him and that he needs to stop. He says that I only say this because I want to have a reason to find another man. And I do think about leaving him. But, Emma, if I do, cachaça (alcoholic drink made from fermented sugar) will surely kill him.”

2007-05-23T08:03:00.000-07:00

L

2007-05-22T05:43:00.000-07:00

i am thinking about combining these digital photographs with photographs that the kids make with point and shoot camers....perhaps in five of these families. all of the kids are really interested in my camera and i think this might add a fun element to this project. I am going to see if this will be possible today.

2007-05-21T08:36:00.000-07:00

2007-05-18T08:15:00.000-07:00

"…In the silence of the night I sit imagining me being with you. I shut my eyes and see you arrive and I feel the touches of your hands, I feel you hugging me, and I feel your lips join with mine. Look love, look toward the sky of thousands and thousands of stars disappearing into the darkness…"

A letter written by Thelma, 25 years old, my co-worker of on the project Cidade Criança. She sent this letter to São Paulo to her husband who can’t read. I wonder if letters like these are passed on to a close, literate friend to read aloud privately with the recipient, or if these letters become the subject of a more public reading performance for the residents of the sugar cane lodgings.

Pieces of my work with various families:

My husband is crazy about this bird. When he is here, he lets it out of the cage and it hops on his shoulder and sometimes flies out the window into that tree. But when my husband is gone, the bird stays in the cage. I am afraid that if I let it out, it will fly away and never come back.

The child was born the week he left. I was glad that he was here to know the child. But now he growing and time is passing and the father doesnt see this.
This is my pet chick, dad. My neighbor gave it to me and I carry him around in a small cage.

We played the recording of voice of Gustavo’s father that we made before he left for São Paulo. Gustavo, a four year old, sat on the couch looking at the CD player as if he had seen a ghost. When the father’s voice asked Gustavo if he missed him, Gustavo nodded and said, ‘Yes, I do.’ By the end of the recording Gustavo was dripping with tears and everyone just sat silent. It was almost more than I could bear to watch this. I don’t really know what to think of these sound recordings. Maybe it was good for Gustavo to remember that his father really loves him a lot but it scared me to think that this child might think that his father can talk to him from the radio, no matter how many times the process of recording a voice was explained to him. This concept might be beyond the reach of the four year old. I am not sure. Amoung my co-workers this started a discussion of wether or not memory, and the act of remembering is worth the pain it brings. Is it just better for a child to forget the voice of his father? Is this use of media too deceptive?

We think he is going to be blind in one eye.

We are all trying to be strong without dad. My mother went to the city today to see the doctor because she has a new baby coming. I am here with grandpa and grandma waiting for her to come back.

This is one of the verses that women sing when they play circle dance games in the rural areas.

O dinheiro de São Paulo
É um dinheiro escumungado.
Foi o dinheiro de São Paulo
Que robou meu normorado.

The money of São Paulo
Is scummy money.
It was the money of São Paulo
That stole my boyfriend.

I am finding that the structure that I have given myself to work with is much too rigid to make photographs that I think are effective in telling stories about these families. For example, the mothers are much too worried that their husbands will be angry at them if they receive a photograph of their with dirt on his hands or with a t-shirt that has a hole in it. This makes picture making into an ordeal that includes bathing, putting on make-up, posing with toys that clean, unbroken, and never-been-played-with. I want these images to become more than this, so I am in the process of changing my approach. I think that in the next few weeks photographs are going to not just be made for the sake of sending but also just for the sake of being and the families will choose if they want to send them, keep them, or throw them away.

A Bus Roles Over In the Sugar Cane Field:
Two women standing near the pay phone on the steep incline of the road of loose pebbles and food wrappers. It is starting to get dark and they are speaking in unusual hushed voices. A small child runs down the hill following a tumbling toy car. “Look,” He said pointing at the toy, “Its dad rolling in the bus!”
One woman says to the other, “That boy’s father was in the accident at the sugar cane plantation this weekend. I think his father was on the same bus as my son and your husband. His mother and his grandfather have been waiting by the phone all afternoon waiting for the call."
"Oh, he is coming toward us---shhhh, don’t say anything to make him worried.” The other woman says,“Just tell him that daddy chipped his tooth and everything is OK.”

“You mean lie?” She says nervously. “All I can say is that if my son is hurt at all, I am getting on the next bust to Rio.”
Its six o´clock. The men have returned from the fields. It is time to recieve their call. The phone rings.
The mother answers the phone but it keeps ringing with the receiver in her hand. A teenager passing by the group sitting around the phone says,
“You know, that phone is broken. You have to let it ring at least three times before you answer it.”
“Ok,” The mother says. She hangs up and returns to her waiting spot on the road by the side of the telephone.

the bus

2007-05-07T12:12:00.000-07:00

This is dad leaving on the bus.

2007-05-07T11:47:00.000-07:00

José just returned from the hospital. He had a hernia and he wants his dad to know he is ok...except that his mom won´t let him run and play with his brother.

migrant workers leaving

Tiago´s mother

2007-05-07T11:36:00.000-07:00

My husband has been gone for 15 days now. Yes, I do count the days. Each day is one day less that I have to wait for my husband to come home.

I have had a lot of health problems. I lost two children before I had this one. The doctor said that perhaps my emotions were what made me lose the kids, that often these problems are more psychological than physical.
I moved to this neighborhood after I got married because we could be close to my husband´s sister. His parents passed away when he was young so he doesn’t have too many relatives around here. The farm where my family lives is soooo great. And Jeffereson loves to go there too. I wish I lived there all the time.
Sometimes go to visit my family on weekends. But it is difficult to go because I have to pay someone to sleep in my house or else someone would rob everything. We were already robbed. Someone took the television and all of my new clothes and earings. It must have been a woman. She escaped through the window near my bed.
I am glad you are willing to do this even though my husband was unwilling to have his picture taken with his son. You don’t even know what a grace you are giving me.
We actually do have one picture of my husband on my cell phone. He says look, dad’s inside the cell phone. Jefferson does not understand that he his father is away working.
My husband was was really shy because of the questions you asked him a few months ago when you are doing research. He feels shameful about his work.
Why, I asked, I don’t understand.
I don’t understand either this work is just as good as anyone else’s, she said. And it is good for this city’s economy too. I mean, if we didn’t have sugar cane workers, who would have enough money to buy clothes and things. All of the stores would shut down. And besides, most of this neighborhood goes to work out side the city.
You know this entire neighborhood is full of widows of living husbands.

2007-05-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

My name is Aldecio and I am 43 years old. Pretty much since ‘88, ‘89 I traveled away from here (siou pelo trecho) to cut sugar cane every year. I worked in Belo Horizonte also. But when I lived there, I also worked cutting sugar cane. And here, every year, I go and return, because here, we pretty much don’t have work. So the only option is to leave here to earn some money. I have always lived with my mother. The time when my mother retired, I left because I needed to help her. Recently she returned to work and so I don’t have to help her anymore. In fact she earns almost twice as much as I do. And now I am making this little house for myself. I am building it, you can see it´s pretty modest.

People from here mainly go to the interior of Sao Paulo. I think this area probably has at least 150 cana plantations. So, generally when people leave here, they don’t all go to the same plantation. So some go to one plantation and others go to other plantations. So last year I was with a group from Araçuaí, in Usina Santa Elena. But people from within this group end up in different places even if they work for the same Usina (plantation). Because Santa Elena is a group…it has 17 usinas...

For our work there, we need to wake up at 4 or 5 am. We have breakfast, grab our packed lunches, pull our clothes together, and leave the lodgings by 6am to go to the fields for work. We finish work at 3:15 or 4pm. But some plantations don’t provide lodgings and you have to go live in the city. [In the city]we have to rent a room, we have to cook for ourselves, and wash our clothes. The lodgings are much better. There we receive everything in our hands, we only have to wash our own clothes. I once worked while I was living in the city. It was much worse.

I have quite a bit of experience in this work. In the beginning it was a bit difficult. But you quickly accustom to the work because there are no secretes, it is mostly your eagerness that helps you do a good job. The first time, you have colleagues who teach you. And, after three days, you already know how.
I chose to cut sugar cane because there was no other option. Here there is no work and also I didn’t study sufficiently to get a good job…so my only option was to cut sugar cane. It is the only kind of work that gives a little bit more money. If you are going to work in construction here, you only get a salary, a minimum wage, even if you are a skilled construction worker. In the plantation, if you work well, you make more than a skilled construction worker, more than a professional.

In all of the lodgings there is a lounge, that has telephone, and we call home and write cards too.
In the near future, I would like to stop this cycle of coming and going. I want to stop.
---God willing, I will have the opportunity to earn a bit more money to let me be comfortable, and then I will stop---because working for others is not easy. We do this kind of work because we need to. It is not good work, no way. It’s not good.

The companies of the plantations come to look for us (recruit us) here. From this month (January) onward they start to get our names and our work cards, and then we will do a medical exam, and in April, they take us away to the plantations. In April there will be a group of more than 30 busses full of people leaving here. Not just from here in the city but from the rural area too.

When the day comes to get the people here, the plantations hire one person from the community that we call “o gato” (the cat). The plantations have many gatos in the region. So the plantation calls the gatos and asks them to start collecting names and cards of workers.

The firms there are prohibited from hiring minors. If the ministry of work sees a minor working, the plantation would get in trouble. There is no way for minors to work. If you have all documents ready in your hand and you are older than 18 yrs old, you can work.
I have friends who took many pictures of them working in the sugar cane. But I never liked to take pictures there, because I think this work is really a lot of suffering. So I don’t have any photos of myself working.

I have a big knife for cutting sugar cane that I have here with me in my house. I think you have already seen one here [because many people have them]. It is a really dangerous tool.

You need protection why you do this work so we use long pants, gloves, glasses. Accidents are dangerous.

2007-04-27T12:14:00.000-07:00

On the day that the workers left for são paulo, there was a long line of buses outside of the church. Families waited on the street with lugage, until it rained and they all fled for a dry place. Workers sat at the bar, drinking, laughing and crying. "i am excited to go," one worker said,"But i know that even though I have friends there, even though i go to church there, after two months i will be dreaming of returning."

The population of Araçuaí is about 7,000 . People say that about 3,500 leave the city to work in the sugar cane plantations.

letter from Laura and Clebeson

2007-04-27T11:58:00.000-07:00

Laura´s father left last month and her mother works so these days Laura spends most of her time with her blind grandfather. Sometimes her cousin Isabela plays with her during the day too.

Letter from Clebison:
After Clebison´s father left, his mother brought chickens from the farm. Clebison likes to laugh at them. He likes to throw rocks at them too.

Clebison´s mother is 17 years old and she says, thank goodness my husband´s mother lives nearby. She helps out a lot with Clebison.

letter from Roseline

2007-04-27T11:50:00.000-07:00

My husband left last week and I asked the doctor if he could make the baby come early so he could be here with me and see his child. I am due next week.

"My love, i just wanted to show you these things. I bought some clothes and a washtub and my friend made a mobile. These days i am staying at home alone. I was at a friends house but its crappy to have to wake everyone up when i have to go to the bathroom. I think its better at home where i can turn on the lights whenever i want. I havent found anyone who can go with me to the hospital yet. My friend Rosa has kids and she said that she will do her best but she cant leave them at home. I am scared but excited too."

Letter from Samira

2007-04-27T11:42:00.000-07:00

[This is paint made from Araçuaí´s dirt]

Samira has changed a lot since her father left. She is madly in love with her father and misses him a lot. She will cry for no reason like she has never done before. She didn´d react like this last year when he went away. I had to hang the picture high on the wall, in a place where she couldnt reach it because I was afraid she would ruin it.

letter from juan carlos and jamerson

2007-04-27T11:28:00.000-07:00

Dad, don´t worry, i am taking care of the house.

"My husband is soft like butter. He melts. When he calls he wont let me hand over the phone to the kids because, he says, he knows that he will cry and cry and cry. He says he doesnt want his sons to hear him crying."

letter to César

2007-04-27T11:19:00.000-07:00

[you will always be in my heart]
[Cana cutter--good luck father, god will look after you]

ambiente de Nova Esperança

2007-04-27T10:51:00.000-07:00

These are images of Nova Esperança, one of the neighborhoods that I visit frequently to visit families. I am intrigued by this environment. It feels very harsh, raw--- unfished and falling apart at the same time. Pockets of lushness, of flowers and well watered fruit trees and there are also piles of trash, dead dogs, and rivers of dirty water flowing down the streets. I often stumble on the small loose stones on the roads and tumble into barbed wire fences when I am trying to find a way to enter a closed in home that has no gate. I hear stories of drug gangs, of a husband who shot his wife the other day, and of theves who crawl into unlocked windows at night.
People moved here about 7 years ago when the government opened up the lots for whoever arrived there first. Many of the families are young couples who moved to the city from rural areas to find work. Most of the houses dont have running water yet and it is a long walk to the river in the sun.

2007-04-18T11:20:00.000-07:00

A digital image made during the struggle to get everyone together sitting with pai. And this was when everyone settled down.
Dad went away to work three weeks ago. Here are some cards.

These are two pictures of dad working.

This is me and dad fishing.

2007-04-10T12:10:00.000-07:00

These are images that I made with film that will stay with the families of the sugar cane migrant workers. I think that disengaged or apprehensive look of the male figures in these images is partially due to the social context in which I made the images. In this region, sugar cane cutting is usually seen as shameful work and the fathers of these families were not very excited to be identified as sugar cane workers. So it seems as though most of these photographs happened only because the mothers and/or the children really wanted them. Also, in some cases, it was very difficult to get young children to sit with their fathers. There was lots of resistance and crying (that i didnt photograph) which added to this awkwardness.

The next step in this project is to start working on visual letters that we will send to the workers while they are away.
I think this process will work as follows:
I am going to give workshops to the caretakers about interviewing and letter writing and about how we are going to document the letters that the families make. Then the caretakers will sit with each family and with (or possibly without me) to make these letters.
The families will respond---by writing, drawing, or making photographs---to questions like these:
What was the day like when your father/husband left?
What has changed in your life since your father/husband left?
What is something you are proud of that you would like to tell him/show him?
What do you miss about your father, what do you miss doing with him?
Why did your husband/father leave?
Make a self-portrait.
What do you think your father/husband is doing now?

2007-04-10T11:06:00.000-07:00

Yesterday I sat on the floor in a circle with the Mãe Cuidadores, the mother caretakers, making frames for each photograph that we made last month. There were bits of magazines, glue, tape and wood shavings all over the floor as we rolled the colorful paper into tubes and pasted them onto the pieces of flat wood to make the small frames. There was a long debate about how the pictures would hang in the family´s homes. Some caretakers insisted that we needed to drill holes in the backs of the frames so that the families could hang the pictures on the walls. "You know, most of these familys dont have tables or shelves to display framed photos" one caretaker said. Others insisted that making a stand for the photo was a better idea "The small children would have better access to the photo...they could pick it up, touch it, bring it to bed with them." another care taker said. We did many experiments with folding paper in different ways, using glue to make the paper stronger, *trying to make the photograph stand on its own*. However, the pictures kept falling and we eventually gave into the wall hanging option. We settled on a piece of string, glued and taped to the back that could be hung on a nail. Marilha, my coleague, took down one of the images of the virgin mary from above the altar and hung one of the framed photos in its place. Everyone eyed the photograph causiously as we cleaned up, hoping it would pass the test.

Today I went with a few of the caretakers to give the photos to as many families as possible. Most of the fathers had already left to cut sugar cane. However, we did run into a few who were still at home, waiting to leave with a group on friday or another next week. "wow, this is great," one mother said, "we dont have any photos of my husband with the kids." another mom scolded one of the children who refused to be photographed with his father. "look how beautiful it would have been if you hadn´t refused to sit with your dad." One father said he wanted to take the picture with him to cut sugar cane. I said, no, this one has to stay here with your kid so that she can remember your face.

As we were walking house to house in the neighborhood Nova Esperança (new hope) to give people photos, we passed a little four year old girl and her small brother on there way to the day care center. The little girls foot was covered in bleeding and pussing burn marks. Marilha stopper her and her brother on the road to chat with them. They looked stunned, as if they had just seen a ghost. I recognized this pair children from a home I had visited two weeks ago. The home is a one room house that shelters 9 children and their mother. The father had just returned after being absent for about a year. He came to visit and said he was going to take the children away because he saw that the mother left them alone, with the 8 year old (the oldest) in charge one day. I remembered that the youngest child was severly underweight. It looked like it was barely surviving. Marilha asked the little girl what happend to her foot. She wouldnt answer. "your on your way to the daycare center, right?" marhilha asked. the girl didnt answer. "so go on your way then," Marilha said. And off they went.

I have been thinking a lot about social responsibility...specifically what kind of responsiblity these semi-employed caretakers and I have when we see children that are maltreated or starving.

portraits

2007-04-09T07:27:00.000-07:00

rain

2007-03-19T10:48:00.000-07:00

portraits

2007-03-19T07:20:00.001-07:00

The first part of this letter making process is to visit the homes of families who were willing to participate and make portraits and record the voices of those who will leave to work in the sugar cane plantations next month. The portraits and recordings will stay with the children and their families.

Roberto para pablo:
Eu amo ele demais. Ele é todo que eu tenho. E eu sinto muito falta de ele quando eu vou embora. Todo dia fico pensando em ele.

[R: I love him a lot. He is all that I have. And I feel his absence when I go away. I think of him every day.]

Adelcio: Eh Gustavo, chega pra ca. Oh filho, papai vai viajar para corta de cana, e daqui um pouco tempo papai volta viu?
Gustavo: viu
Adelcio: Papai fica morendo de saudade pra voce, filho
Gustavo: viu
Adelcio: Voce vai ficar com soudade de papai? Chora não, Chora não. Daqui um pouco tempo papai volta viu? Papai tem que trabalhar ne?
Gustavo: viu
Adelcio: Papai volta logo. Viu filho? Papai vai ficar com soudade de voce, fé em dues papai volta, viu? Ne filho? Chora não. Papai volta. Daqui seis, sete meses papai volta. Da um abraço pra papai, da. Papai vai, mas papai volta, viu? Chora não.

[A: Hey Gustavo, come here. Oh son, your father is going to travel to cut sugar cane and he will return after a short time, you see?
G: ok.
A: Your father will be dieing of longing for you, son.
G: ok.
A:Will you miss you dad? Don’t cry, don’t cry. You know, in a short time, dad will return. Dad needs to work, doesn’t he?
G: I understand.
A: I will return, understand son? I will miss you lots, but with faith in god I you dad will return. Right son? Don’t cry. Dad will return. In about six or seven months dad will return. Give dad a hug. Dad is going away but he will return, understand? Don’t cry.]

Ronaldo: Oh Carol, papai viaja dia oito de mes que vem, ce vai ficar com soudade de papai?
Carol: vou.
Ronaldo: vai. Ce quer ir mais com seu papai?
Carol: quer.
Ronaldo: ce chora?
Carol: Choro
Ronaldo: Chora? Ce fica com soudade?
Carol: fico
Ronaldo: ce quer papai fica ou ce quer papai vai?
Carol: vai.
Ronaldo: papai tem que ir pra comprar comida, comprar sandala, comprar ropina, comra masã. Ce gosta de masã?
Caral: gusto
Ronaldo: ce quer pai vai pra comrar pra voce?
Carol: quer. E eu não vou falar palavrão.
Ronaldo: ce não vai falar palavrão, so coisas boas. Se vai cuidar pra sua mai quando eu vou emobra
Carol: ah huh
Ronaldo: vai?
Carol: vou.
Ronaldo: Então bom.

[R: Oh Carol, your father is going away to work on the 8th of next month. Will you miss your dad?
C: Yes, I will.
R: Do you want to come with me?
C: Yes, I want to.
R: will you cry?
C: yes, I will cry.
R: You will cry? Will you miss me?
C: Yes, I will.
R: Do you want dad to go or to stay?
C: I want dad to go.
R: Yes, dad needs to go so that he can buy food, shoes, clothes, apples. Do you like apples?
C: yes!
R: Do you want dad to go so he can buy apples for you?
C: Yes, and I wont say any more bad words.
R: That’s right, you wont say any more bad words, just good things. And you will take care of your mom when I am away?
C: yeah.
R: will you?
C: yes, I will.
R: Ok, good.]

So, what am I thinking about this....I originally thought that my work would be with about five families, but when the NGO decided to make this project of “The Cartas” into an official part of their work, I officially gave up a significant piece of my control for this initial part of the project. They want the project to serve all of the families that take part of in the ngo’s activities. I would have preferred to concentrate on a few families. This illustrates the tension between this work’s function as a social service for the families and its function as a document of a social phenomenon. To actually be a social service, the ngo believes that it needs to expand and multiply. To be a documentary project it needs to focus and specify…unless the point of the project is to express the enormity of the number of families that this problem touches via an accumulation of images…
Following through with this expansion pushed my limits, my patience. I felt angry, at times furious about what I was doing. I usually consider a portrait making process to be a sacred and intimate encounter between two individuals. In this case, I was followed by a troop of seven loud chatty women and was pushed to visit 27 homes in three days. (I have at least 15 more to visit next week.) The portrait making was interrupted by people heckling me, hey Emma your pants are falling down! You have too much stuff in your pockets! Hey, I think this subject needs to take a bath. Go take a bath, put on some lipstick, we will wait. Flashes of my coworker’s camera, taking pictures of me working. My troop of assistants getting caught up in teary emotions. A mother running into her bedroom to let tears flow privately. Emma I am too shy, can we do this another day. Sorry, I am afraid we can’t but I will come back another day on my own, I promise, and we can talk. My subject’s eyes distracted, perhaps looking at one of my assistants eating an orange or wondering who the hell is this American anyway who didn’t take the time to enter my home and have coffee and chat before she made this ridiculous request to take my picture.

But it is also important to note that these moments of doubt and frustration were among a flood of moments of enthusiasm for this project, pleasure of watching the fathers and their children see themselves together on the digital screen, and genuine excitement about receiving an image to keep.
And I also think that there are documentary benefits to letting this work expand. I was able to meet many people who would have otherwise been impossible to encounter. Now I have a larger pool of families who are willing to participate and I will be able to choose those families that are more enthusiastic about working closely with me. NGO staff can help me with unexpected needs. Their involvement will leave room for changes or additions that I could never have imagined. I also think that this release of control could let my idea evolve, perhaps more naturally, in the field, within the communities, letting those who live there become the leaders of this work in its actual context. A relative release of control of the paths this project might follow, I think, gives this work a better chance of becoming something practical and permanent…and, well, perhaps the permanent thing will be as valuable or more valuable than whatever I produce as a document.

porco

2007-03-12T11:36:00.000-07:00

2007-03-12T11:28:00.000-07:00

Cesar remembered that he wanted to show me some pictures. That´s me on the right.

It was raining here, in this picture, so we stopped. Look there is the knife I was telling you about. It is a very dangerous tool.

This is a picture of me in the lodging of the cana plantation.
"Ugh, I hate that picture," cesar’s wife says. "I cant stand it when your hair is long in the back like that. I am glad I made you cut it off when you came back."

pot burners

2007-03-12T11:25:00.002-07:00

I am twenty years old Yeah I look a bit older than I am really. It the work that does it. My muscles are gone already.
I went to cut sugar cane two times. The first I rented a house in the city, the second I stayed in the lodging. When I rented a house in the city, I was one of those, you know, what do you call them? Oh yeah, “Pot Burners”. [quema latas, migrant workers who use thin pots to cook for themselves. They notoriously burn their food.] Living in the lodging was much worse than living in the city. Why? Well you know, I like to drink a bit, and I had to walk really far from the lodging to the nearest bar. Yeah, they had a small bar at the lodging but the beer was way too expensive.

2007-03-12T11:25:00.001-07:00

my day started with this story:
Yeah mom suffers a lot. He dirties himself a lot, and she cleans his clothes for him. you know he’s not sick, he drinks. He drinks a lot. Mom told me that he was yelling a lot and he peed all over himself and the sofa when you were there visiting, I am sorry you had to see that. It is only because of junior that he lives in the house. When he is away, junior is all distracted and loses weight. Junior is crazy for his father even though he is abusive. His father uses ugly language and yells at him but I guess Junior is used to it. My brother wants to leave the house. But he hasn’t made enough money yet. All the money he brings back from cutting sugar cane goes to taking care of Junior’s father and mom. Mom sometimes even has to use her bolsa da escola (welfare), the money that is supposed to be used for buying junior’s school uniform and books, to take care of junior’s father. Now that my husband passed the government exams, we have a bit more money and promised to help my brother start to build a new home.
My father hasn’t been very helpful either. He just started talking to us and caring about our children recently, now that we have all grown up. I remember a time when we were really hard up for money and there was absolutely nothing in the house to eat. Mom told us to go ask dad to help us out. We went to his home in the other neighborhood. When we entered the house we saw that he was eating a big plate of food. He told us to get out. But, you know, this hunger was really deep hunger, desperate hunger, so we were insistant. Finally he scooped up leftovers from his meal served them into our hands. Treated us like dogs. Like dogs. I will never forget this, ever. It hurts to remember. That’s why my doors are always open for anyone who needs help. I will never shut my door for anyone.

the drip

2007-03-08T09:36:00.000-08:00

back to the hospital again. tomei soro uma vez mais. eyes fixed on the drip as my body absorbs what it lost. feeling restless, feeling like i have never wanted more to leave a place, this hospital, the drunk to my left, a broken leg to my right, his bed wheels whining as the pain moves through his body.

i am lucky to be without pain today. to be a healthy person that just ate something rotten. i am lucky that my pain was temporary. I am also lucky for the way the experience has shifted my vision slightly. reminded me to notice things like the dog sitting on the handlebars of a bike that passed by, the way people walking in the street follow the outlines of shadows in order to avoid the sun.

ausência (absence)

2007-03-05T12:36:00.000-08:00

“A presença nas cartas dissimula a ausência e possiblitia a convivência entre dois mundos, dois tempos, dois espaços e dois identidades.”

-Cláudia de Jesus Maia

The presence in the cards [written by the laborers for their families] hides their absence and enables them to live between two worlds, two times, two spaces, and two identities.

dia de beleza

2007-03-05T03:45:00.000-08:00

This is the day when everyone gets a good shampoo. [The day when the lice run away...I aprove]

2007-03-05T03:40:00.000-08:00

[cana-sugar cane]

2007-03-05T03:35:00.000-08:00

I am turning into one of those people who always carries a tooth brush.

Rural community outside Araçuaí

2007-03-05T03:22:00.000-08:00

I was in Rio for a few days. I saw friends from the United States and other English-speaking friends who are working/researching in Rio. It felt wonderful to see friends and talk to others who are also foreigners working in Brazil. My throat was sore from talking, laughing, debating…
Now I am back in my semi-illiterate/mute state in this small town.

Everyone calls me emma de boca cheia (Emma full mouth) because I speak as though my mouth is full of food.

I spent last week in the rural area of Araçuaí, working with a staff member from CPCD, Marilia, who leads groups of “mother caretakers” who visit homes of pregnant women and young children. The mother caretakers give massages to mothers and babies, make sure children are well nourished and well treated. They also run community events like the guitar circle, book reading parties, and spontaneous story telling sessions.

I made a video about the work that the women do. It was a one-day shoot that honestly felt quite shallow, however, the caretakers really loved watching themselves do their work on the tiny screen of my laptop.

The town Schnoor is named after a German engineer who constructed the train line that was called the Barria-Minas. The train stopped running about forty years ago, and the station, located towards the center of the town, is now a community center.
I stayed with the family that cares for the evangelical church. There was no novella or television in this household. (Most households have at least one television.) This was a challenge for Marilia, my co-worker who cannot miss an episode---so we had to search for other homes that had televisions so that we could catch, most importantly, Bicho do Mato (wild animal), the novella that shows every evening at 9:30pm. It is an emotional drama that, this week, portrayed extremely wealthy families of Rio fighting over a big diamond. Last night I watched this novella in the home of a mother and a three-year-old child. The three year old was uninterested in the novella, “I want to see cows, quero ver vacas,” he said referring to the rural agriculture channel, “Can we switch to the cow channel? Please please, the cow channel.” I secretly agreed. I’d rather watch cows.

[farinha factory]

[corn growing inside an unfinished home...a common site in Schnoor]
I had the chance to speak with a few mother caretakers of Schnoor about a new project that I will work on with their support in the next few months.
The project will document children’s perspectives of the seasonal migration of laborers from Araçuaí to the sugar cane plantations of the interior of São Paulo and Rio de Janeiro. This project will be based on a series of creative visual letters that the children of the laborers and their families will make with my help. We will use a process of photographing, writing, drawing, and recording audio to construct these letters, which may take the form of small visual books. We will send the letters to the laborers and keep copies of the letters that will become of this documentary project. This documentary will address issues related to the phenomenon of “Caindo na cana” (falling into the sugar cane) and “viúvas dos maridos vivos” or “esposa de dois meses” (widows of living husbands or two month wives). Although the project may include the collaboration other community members and contextual information that will contribute to a better understanding of issues addressed in the letters, the project will primarily focus on the voices and perspectives of children.
I am probably going to start by making portraits of the laborers (who are still here) with their children. The children will keep these photos, and perhaps a recording of their father´s voices. This is a response to many mothers saying that their children quickly forget what their fathers look like and are afraid of their fathers when they return.
Notes:
The creative letter writing exercise will become one of CPCD’s permanent literacy and creativity initiatives.
Many of the laborers are illiterate, visual nature of the letters is important.
Many children struggle with reading and writing skills.
Families already communicate via letters with laborers, however, the child’s voice is usually absent.
Laborers are working in the sugar cane fields from the end of March until mid November.

History of Photography--Carnaval Samba in Rio

2007-02-27T05:16:00.000-08:00

A few days ago I was dancing samba singing about the History of Photography with Unidos da Tijuca, samba school of Rio de Janeiro. [English speakers can follow my very rough translation.]

Emoldurei a magia da recordação
Com pincel de luz e cores,
Eu mudei valores,
Aprisionei seu coração

[I framed the magic of recording
with a brush of light and color
I changed values,
I imprissoned your heart.]

[This woman has her burca costume (fantasia) draped over her arm, waiting to parade with the hundreds of others dressed in burcas each carrying this photo in a glittering gold frame]

…
O munda pára
Pára, o munda pára
O munda pára pra fantasia
Um click fez o personagem
Dar força á imagem na fotografia

[The world stops
Stops, the world stops,
The world stops for imagination/fantasy
One click made a personality
To give power to the photographic image]

[An interpretation of the the photograph of the 9 year old girl napalm victim of the Vietnam war---a female body tossing about on the float, moving in an out of samba steps. Orange flames dance and consume the body figure. Smoke filters down from the jetplane above. A small soldier waving to the crowd]

Mas a vida ás vezes traz o dor,
A falta de amor pelo irmão,
O triste em belo o artisa consagrou
A lente é pura emoção

[But life sometimes brings pain
with the lack of love for our brothers
the artist dedicated the lens of pure emotion
to the beauty of sadness]
…
Reluz o show em formas sem fim,
O homen e o poder da criação,
Diga quem sou, sorria pra mim
No olhar da comunicação

[Relight the show in forms without end,
the man and the power of creation,
This is who I am
Smile for me
in the name of communication]

[When one of the wild camera flash bulbs of this raft burst, the right hand of the photography fairy/devil burned in dramatic flames . Fire trucks fled to put out the fire. Sambistas evacuated the raft and the bombadeiros (firemen) struck a pose on the raft as it drifted, without a right hand, down the rest of the avenida.]

Em preto-e-branco ganhei a vida,
O amarelo em mistério, ilusão
O azul no tom divinal,
Nas fotos do carnaval
Sou a Tijuca nesta tela digital.

[I was born in black and white
In yellow I was mystery and illusion
In blue I was a divine tone
In the photos of carnaval
I am the Tijuca on this digital screen.]

Letters from a sugar cane plantation

2007-02-15T07:41:00.000-08:00

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

FFF project

2007-02-14T11:10:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-14T10:56:00.000-08:00

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)

2007-02-14T10:38:00.000-08:00

H=horta (garden)

p=pedra (stone)

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

2007-02-14T10:14:00.000-08:00

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.

MLK JR

2007-02-03T10:28:00.000-08:00

“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.

2007-02-01T14:04:00.000-08:00

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

2007-02-01T14:00:00.000-08:00

“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

2007-02-01T13:53:00.000-08:00

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.

letter from the wife of a sugar cane migrant worker

2007-01-19T07:31:00.000-08:00

2-1-98
Dear Husband Jose,
How are you? Everything is good with me. Only can´t feel really good because I feel much longing in your absence. Before I go on, I would like to wish you a happy new year, full of peace, love and money and many fulfillments in your life. Look dear, I received the card and the 480, 00$ Reais. And I received the presents of underwear. Look, Jose, the house is not ruined. I am not working on the roofing. I need someone to see it for me.
How was Christmas? For me Christmas was good because I prayed a lot and I participated in the roaming Jesus ritual. It was joyful. We had lots of fun. But it would have been better if you had been here…look, I am very emotional because we are still very far apart from each other and as each moment of life passes apart from each other, I feel more alone every day. Every day brings sadness…
Maria

round 2

2007-01-19T07:26:00.000-08:00

I am a pretty tolerant person, but when it comes to lice… The first time I discovered that I was infested was on a Sunday. No stores were open. My host mother assured me, don’t wory, we will take you to get the exterminating shampoo on Monday morning. I think she saw the horror in my face, and after a few minutes she changed her mind and said, “Actually, let´s see if any of my friends have some in their houses. And don’t worry,” she said, “every child in this city gets lice.” (However, this was the first time for this 25 year old child.)
This morning I found myself going through the delousing ritual again. It has been extremely hot in the last few days. Over 115 degrees F. People say that little creatures procreate at a faster rate in the heat and the smell of my foreign sweat is apparently irresistible. I was more even headed about this second infestation. I calmly canceled my morning plans, went straight to the bathroom, soaked my head in the medicine, and routed out each louse with a fine comb.

mud and letters

2007-01-18T09:43:00.000-08:00

I have been traveling by bike to talk to sugar cane migrant workers and their families. I often end up carrying my bike more than my bike carries me...it rained last week.

Most of them are home in the neighborhoods in the outskirts of the city nicknamed, Nova Esperança (New Hope), Barrio dos Escravos (the neighborhood of the slaves), and Pipoca (Popcorn). The migrant workers leave again in April when the new sugar cane crop in São Paulo is ready to cut.

I have been talking to the families about the adjustments they have to make when they are separated from their fathers, brothers, and uncles for 8 months each year. I am curious to see how they maintain relationships with men who leave. Yesterday one family gave me a stack of letters that they saved… A record of 10 years of correspondence between the family who lived on a farm without a telephone and the father who was working in the sugarcane fields. At first, the mother was embarrassed to show me the letters. “I don’t know how to write correctly. I only studied until sixth grade.” Her fourteen year old son said, “But mom, the letters are sufficient for communicating.”
The letters were practical discussions about money and resources, expressions of longing, reports about the wellbeing of the chickens, births, deaths, sicknesses. There were even love letters, saved from when the couple was courting. Small drawings of hearts on the outside of the envelopes and yellow mangos on the inside.

Pankarú and Pataxó

2007-01-18T09:32:00.000-08:00

I spent the weekend in the village of people from the Pankarú and Pataxó indigenous tribes and went swimming in the river.

I had good eye-opening moment when I was walking with a group of children and I came across a curious pair of rocks. One rock was painted with strange red and yellow designs. The other was covered with a piece of cloth with floral patterns. There was also a cup with flowers and water, an empty plate, a peal of a passion fruit, and bottle cap. Earlier that day, someone mentioned that carrying and saving a heavy rock was a part of the tribe’s marriage ceremony. I thought that these rocks might be associated with this ritual or some other ritual. So I asked one of the children, “What is the significance of these rocks?” She looked at me like I was crazy. I thought she misunderstood me so I asked again. “Are these objects associated with any of your rituals?” She laughed and said, “Well, actually we were playing make believe house here yesterday. And this is our kitchen.”
Now I am wondering what else am I misinterpreting.

2007-01-10T05:18:00.000-08:00

The children at the orphanage who are ages eleven to seventeen are about to leave and enter the world. They made photos about hope and wrote about them.

2007-01-10T05:06:00.000-08:00

folio de Livro:
the itinerant library. This is the parade that happens when it travels from neighborhood to neighborhood.

2007-01-10T05:02:00.000-08:00

When I asked him when his child was born he hesitated and withdrew from what had been a fairly calm and fluid conversation. There was a moment of discomfort until his wife appeared with the smiling baby in her arms. Large, curious eyes, gurgling, wearing a purple headband and pink sandals. Attention was diverted to her. “She is six months old,” he said. “I returned from cutting sugar cane a few weeks ago and I am just starting to get to know her. You know, the work is heavy and the food is awful but the hardest thing is being away from my family.”

conferência

2006-12-18T10:47:00.000-08:00

I just returned from a conference called “Visible Rights: For and by Children”. The central idea was to discuss the use of photography to bring child-centered perspectives to development work, academic studies, and advocacy. It was a gathering of practitioners and academics… including professors from the Harvard, Duke, SENAC (Brazil), young people just beginning projects and directors of projects for children that have been running for twenty years or more. There was a lot of discussion about ethics and about protecting the participants of collaborative projects.

For me, the most important piece of this gathering was meeting a group of enthusiastic and socially engaged human beings and witnessing the beginnings of a network of recourses for those seeking ways to improve their humanitarian creative practices. The most interesting interactions I had were the informal conversations that happened during the long taxi rides from here to there in São Paulo and while wondering through the expansive circus of the São Paulo Biennial.
These were important moments when we took time to examine our motivations for doing various kinds of collaborations, how we determine the best process or structure for a project, and deconstructed our roles as directors, choreographers, and participants in our own projects.

Here are some of my notes, questions posed, comments made in São Paulo:

*Too much documentation of children who lead precarious lives focuses on their strife more than their agency.
*All image-makers need the chance to be critics of their own images.
*Transcripts of resistance are hidden in photos. How can we learn to read them?
*Are children politically engaged in a different way than adults? Should we read adult politics in images made by children?
*How do you measure empowerment? Psychosocial analysis? Can we put this in grids?
*Who is arbitrating the discussion about whether or not this work is ethical? Do we need more academics?
*Is exploring extreme poverty with a camera ethical? Whether or not the camera is in the hands of an oppressed youth?
Are you training children to be artists?
* Is this a form of colonialism?
*Is the product as important as the process? Should we care about aesthetics?
*How can a site-specific project be received internationally? Context of culture and circumstance can change meaning. Can produce misunderstanding.
*Is photography democratic? Access, costs, visual photographic discourse—a language of the elite?
*Can we really be the guardians of children’s images?…authorship.

oficina de vídeo

2006-12-07T08:47:00.000-08:00

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

2006-12-07T08:42:00.000-08:00

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.”

2006-11-27T12:15:00.000-08:00

So far I have been primarily working with two of CPCD’s projects in Araçuaí. Ser Criança (To be a Child) and A Gente Cultura Viva (Our Living Culture). I have also been photographing in their folk art factory and helping out in the office.

At the moment, my most exciting task is to make documentary videos with children and teenagers that will screen at the inauguration of the new cinema that CPCD is building in the center of Araçuaí. The short videos will address the history and culture of Araçuaí.
Here is a picture of the space. The cinema is supposed to be finished in February. I will send you and invitation!

CPCD already has itinerant cinemas that travel to surrounding rural communities. So far they have been screening films like Finding Nemo. They have not shown anything that has been made within this community. I am hoping that the videos that the children make will screen in the itinerant cinemas as well as the in the new permanent space and possibly other, more unpredictable, public sites. (CPCD also has an LCD projector.) CPCD is hoping to house an editing studio in the new cinema and create a filmmaking workshop for children and teenagers to continue making films.

I have already started to work on storyboards with some of the children.

I am working within a wide age range. A group of children ages 6-14 and a group of 16-17 year olds. Tomorrow I am running a workshop to teach the educators, the concerned mothers group, and the teenagers about the possibilities of video and photography. I spent the weekend making a PowerPoint presentation in Portuguese.
here is a piece of the presentation:
não mexe a mão não deixa a sua mão impedir a foto

1)liga/disliga
2)para conservar a bateria não usa a tela da maquina
3)usa de correia da maquina bem segura a maquina sempre com duas mãos
4)comença a filmar um pouco antes da cena (da ação). 10 segundas. e para depois da cena (10 segudas) para assegurar que nada seja cortada do filme.

Tira um tempo para observar a cena antes de filmar e escutar o ambiente antes de gravar.

diagrama

2006-11-27T12:00:00.000-08:00

When I first arrived in Minas, I met with Tão, the director of CPCD at the office in Belo Horizonte, the capital of Minas. He drew this diagram for me.

Tão calls himself an educator. He studied Anthropology and taught history for many years. It is clear that his interests in folklore and folk art have had a profound effect on his organization. Tão has a slightly mischievous smile and clear, sharp eyes. He always wears a cowboy hat.

Tão explained the origin of CPCD and the proliferation of its projects. He spoke slowly and clearly in Portuguese. I understood as much as I could….

The methodology of CPCD is based on learning through play, involving the community in each child’s education, and allowing children to contribute to decisions concerning their own learning.

The basis of CPCD’s methodology is the roda, the wheel. Everyday, children and community educators sit in a circle and share stories, play games, voice concerns, sing songs, and decide what the schedule will be for the day.

A few years ago CPCD identified Araçuaí and the surrounding rural communities as a region that had an intolerable rate of illiteracy and was in need of a revolution in its education system.

CPCD created a number of projects and set up an office here in Araçuaí

Statistics show that CPCD’s intervention has been helpful.

2006-11-27T11:55:00.000-08:00

I made my introduction. I tried to speak clearly, ignoring my racing thoughts, and my instincts to use English words that would explain how welcomed I felt and how excited I was to be meeting everyone. I held these words back and restricted thoughts and emotions to a few simple sentences. I asked them all to repeat my name out loud. They thought this was funny, and I thought, well, at least they will know my name. Emma is not that difficult for Portuguese speakers…in Portuguese Emma means emu. Yes, the large, awkward, sort of ugly bird. Three toed feet and loose, shaggy feathers. Should I change my name?

One child caught up with me as I was walking away from the group. He wriggled his small fingers into my hand and held on tight. We walked down the road for a while, his legs moving twice as fast as mine, my feet stumbling on the cobblestones, and my head spinning. I felt confused. I was thinking about the heat, my burning skin, the itchy welts on my legs. My mind was scrambling fast, trying to make things make sense, searching for firm ground, a solid place to land, and a place to rest. After a few minutes I was conscious of this hand that was clenching mine, and this little soul by my side. I felt a tug, and stopped.
“O Emma, eu não indendi nada que você ja falou.” He said in his small 8-year-old voice. (Emma, I didn’t understand anything you just said.)
I sat down on the ground and he sat down next to me. I said,
“I think you did understand something. You know how to say my name.” He giggled. I laughed.
“What’s yours?” I asked.
“José.” He said.
“Prazer.” (it is nice to meet you.)

2006-11-17T09:52:00.000-08:00

Na semana passado fiquei muito doente. Tina cólicas da minha barriga. Vomitava e passava muito tempo no toilete. Finalmente eu foi ao hospital porque a dor esteve muito forte e eu estive com medo.

O médico me deu os remedios e a dor foi embora. Agora estou melhor, mas a agulha do medico fez uma hematoma grande no meu pulso. É feia, não é?

Ja foi embora do Rio de Janeiro. Foi para Belo Horizonte, Curvelo, e finalmente, Araçuaí. A viagem foi muito longe. Passei quase 26 horas no ônibus. Chuvei a noche todo, mas quando eu acordei, vi muitas coisas belezas da janela.

Visitei os projectos do CPCD no Curvelo. As criançes fazem brinquedos da sucatoteca.

E essa cidade pequena é Araçuaí. Eu vou morar aqui, na essa rua. Os moradores de Araçuaí tem um sitaqui differente e a valle de Jequitinhonha tem uma clima muito quente. Eu vou acostomar.

2006-11-08T09:45:00.000-08:00

Onteg foi ao Nitaroi. Foi de barca grande e atravesei a agua.
Quando eu chegei no Nitaroi, vi uma outra barca estrana. Achei que ela veio aqui das estralas.
Quando eu entrei a barca estrana, dicobriu uma lingua estrana. Ela paraciu Portuguese mas tinha palavras muito mais grande do que as pralavras que eu sei. As palavras era como elas: inspiracão, interpretação, representação, estético, gesturais, simbólico, espaço picóral, mundo visíval, e metamorfoses. Eu pensei, que estranas!

Mas quando um pauco tempo passou, eu comencei reconhecer as palavras. Falei, essa lingua é a lingua da arte e eu não estou numa barca das estralas. Eu estou num museu da arte!

2006-11-01T04:52:00.000-08:00

Ontem foi um festival da musica electronica. Estava muito cheio la. O son daquela muisica paraciu a mixtura do son de um trem e o som dos muitos cachorros que estao morrendo. Dancei muito por a noite toda. Quando eu chegei em casa esteve sol. Ainda agora ouço o ritmo da musica na minha cabeca.

2006-10-24T14:19:00.000-07:00

o fin de semana passado eu foi embora o Rio e visitei O Instito Terra em Minas.
ver a natureza lá, me tourno a criança outra vez.

um pássaro mora neste buraco com sua familia. Ela estava com raiva quado eu passei a casa dela.

quando eu via para o ceú e virsava uma folha grande, eu vi estes flores bonitos.

quando eu via para chão eu encontrei estes ensetos que construíaram uma casa enorme da lama.

eu tambem via os outros tips de insetos construíaram uma casa de padaços de ávores. essa casa tem duas protas. eu achei que uma porte é para sair e uma porta é para entrar. o de verdade, eu não sei.

2006-10-17T13:43:00.000-07:00

Ontem foi meu primero vez na praia e minha mai gostava de ensinar me nadar. Mas eu estava com muito medo. Eu não gostava de ir para a agua. Os ondas estavam muito grandes e frios. Quando minha mai pôs me na agua, eu chorei muotio. Depos meu todo corpo estava molhado e havia aria em meu biqini.

2006-10-08T10:10:00.000-07:00

A música da esta nova samba esteve alta demais!

2006-10-08T09:55:00.000-07:00

Anteotem fui à Rocinha ajudar uma jornalista. Nos fazemos investigaçâo sobre as soriais pequenas na esta favela. Eu fazei um video enquanto a jornalista preguntou.

Rocinha é a mais grande favela do America do Sul.
As casas da Rocinha são coloridas e ficam nos morros grandes. Ela tem ruas pequenas e, em ves de táxis, ela tem motos.

2006-10-04T06:05:00.000-07:00

Os corpos dos dançarinos abraçaram e dancaram através do espaçco. Naquele momento, suas almas viveram na música.

2006-10-04T05:58:00.000-07:00

Você vê o baraco na cabeça do Lula?

2006-10-02T12:20:00.000-07:00

Ela gosta de brincar nas ondas com seus amigos, mas sua maí já falou "vamos alamoçcar!" Neste momento, ela está escolando voltar á agua. Ela é levada. Ela está desobedecando sua maí.

2006-10-02T12:03:00.000-07:00

O cara francês vê sua reflexão enquato ele está obersvando a festa da fora.

2006-09-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

Os eleiçõs serão no proximo domingo. Os candidatos por presidante são Lula, Heloísa Helena, Alckmin, e Cristovam Buarque. O Globo, um jornal do Brasil, diz que Lula vai manter vitória.
Os candidatos estam pagando para os pesoas manstrar propogandos politicos. No dia dos eleições, quando eles vão votar, os eleitores não podem usar um biquíni ou uma sunga. Mas o voto é obrigatório no Brasil! Eu acho que esta semana algumas cariocas vai ter que comprar ropas novas.

2006-09-25T14:31:00.000-07:00

Você gosta de abocate? Eu adoro.

Você gosta de ohlo? Eu gosto dele.

Você gosta de carne da vaca? Eu não gosto. Odeio.

2006-09-23T06:54:00.000-07:00

Hoje, saí minha casa ás nove de mañha para a Delegacia de Polìcia Federal. Precicei registar meu visto da pesquina.Eu foi de ômnibus e chegei na Delegacia de Polícia ás dez.

Muitos outros estrangerios e eu esperamos por oite horas.

Qaundo nos esperamos, falamos, "Estamos com fome, estamos com sede, estamos cansados!"

Finalmente, ás seis da tarde, recibi meu visto e voltei para minha casa.

2006-09-23T06:45:00.000-07:00

O Rio de Janeiro é um cidade grande e interestante. O Rio de Janiero tem diversidade. Tem os lugares, pessoas, e coisas differentes.

Da Santa Teresa, eu vi esta vasta vista.

Da minha janela, eu vi esta estreita vista.

Na Lojas Americanas, eu vi esta vista.

2006-09-09T07:02:00.000-07:00

Eu sou dos Estados Unidos mas agora eu moro em Copacabana. Copacabana fica no Rio de Janeiro, Brazil.
Eu moro no apartamento da familia carioca. O apartamento e muito perto da praia.
Como esta o tempo? Hoje faz muito frio. Hoje a praia não tem muitas pessoas. Acho que amanha vai fazer calor.

2006-09-09T06:59:00.000-07:00

A manha, eu sento a mesa e bebo café de manha.

Eu como mamao, pao, e queijo.

2006-09-09T06:43:00.000-07:00

Todos os tardes eu viaho do metro. O metro do Rio de Janeiro e mais limpo e rapido como o metro da Nove York.

2006-09-09T06:41:00.000-07:00

Frequentemente estou muito perdida.
Eu preciso um mapa porque eu não daqui.

2006-09-09T06:39:00.000-07:00

A noche eu vou a uma maketa de rua. A marketa e perto da praia de Copapacabana.