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Published: August 1st 2005
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Paz
A cool doorway in Vila Madalena so i left off on thursday but didn't go into much detail about what had gone on that day specifically. i feel like i'm summarizing the last several days each time i write, but i don't write about the present. so here's the last couple days, again!
i went to the GYAN office on thursday and met barbara and jefferson, two people who work there. barbara is my age and jefferson is a little older, i think mid-20s. they were telling me all about GYAN/TakingITGlobal
TakingITGlobal and some of the projects and events they have sponsored/hosted. jefferson is also working on ICFC. then i got a brief analysis of brazilian political history from the dictatorship until now. basically, every time there's been a president, something happens and the second in command gains power. so now theres a huge corruption scandal with an investigation sparked by the opposition party (social dems) that is now coming back to bite them in the ass. basically they tried to show that the PT (lulas party) was not so clean, but it turns out that a bunch of their own people are involved. BUT everyone is hoping that the government doesn't collapse because then the
flowers at the market
no idea what these are but thought mom would like them vice president would gain power, and he's from the party that neither the PT or the social dems (PSDB) likes - PL, liberal party, which is all for religion and wide open markets. so thats that.
Then i met people from artemisia, which is a foundation that shares the office with gyan, and they give money to youth organizations or individuals (called fellows) for social projects. the projects generally focus on empowerment and income generation for marginalized youth. barbara (a different one) from argentina is living in florianopolis (south) working with a project focusing on women and some other things. i dont exactly remember. luiz is another guy, he lives in brasilandia, one of the shittiest, most crime-ridden areas of sao paulo, and he is starting a magazine written, published, and focused on youth. he said the first issue will probably come out in october. mark has a hip-hop dance company that is getting a cool new building this year, thanks to a lot of support from one of the local grocery chains, and his company also does work with children, handicapped people (physically) and old people. i saw all these photos of performances they did, its really cool.
thats just a few of the people. so thursday barbara from argentina, mark, a woman from kenya named carolyne (another artemisia fellow) and I went to see a project in the pinhieros neighborhood called Aprendiz Cidade-Escola
Aprendiz Cidade-Escola. Its an organization that transformed a nasty, druggy corridor in pinhieros into a neighborhood school. as in, the neighborhood itself is the school. they rent several houses and have classes for children of the local employees (like domestic servants), neighborhood youth and adults, all sorts of stuff. look at the site. i will upload pictures of this one alleyway that is their graffiti practice area. kids learn how to do graffiti artistically and then they go paint walls all over the neighborhood. its incredible.
then later on thursday we went out for pizza with friends of mark's who he hadn't seen in 10 or so years! it was great, everyone was warm and friendly and interacting as if' we'd all been friends forever. we did a round of introductions that ended up being like a huge joke. my portuguese is getting a lot stronger; i was speaking spanish but being responded to mostly in portuguese. After pizza we went to this little
sao paulo
view from joe's aparment club where Mark's friend's soul band was playing and Mark tried to teach me and Luiz how to dance. Then he and some of his colleagues from the dance company broke out in spontaneous hip hop. The pictures don't do justice to how cool it was.
Friday morning: meeting with Elatia, the awesome american expat who works with Fundacao Estudar. We talked about Estudar but then got into her experience here as an american. She loves it...some of the differences are really striking, such as the personal nature of business dealings, the necessity of a bulletproof car, the inability to get bottomless coffee cups :-) but overall she said her quality of life here is better than in the states. and she didn't come living off a trust fund or anything; she works like everyone else. EVERYONE WORKS HERE! even the people in the informal economy go to their "jobs" every day. and most of the foundations and organizations i've encountered are highly focused on creating opportunities for valuable work and income generation (as part of their missions). Friday afternoon: shopping/research in Vila Madalena with Barbara from argentina. We went to all these little stores and art galleries to
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view from joe's aparment again find ones that support community organizations, local and national cooperatives, etc. Collected tons of information and a few presents! Friday night: dinner with Mark, packed my stuff, research until way too late, and woke up too early on saturday for....
THE VILA MADALENA MUNICIPAL MARKET!! its a midsize market by sao paulo standards (maybe even small) but for me it was CRAZY. at the beginning there are a lot of food stands selling juices, empanada-like things, fried bread filled with stuff, etc. then near the beginning there was this guy selling tons of sweets that i had no idea what they were, so he called over his friend who spoke portunhol (portuguese-espanhol) and they were like "taste this, taste that!" coconut cookies covered in chocolate; sweets made from squash, purple potatoes, taro; guava cookies; doce de leite; cocovada (seriously sweet coconut candy); alfajores (caramel sandwich cookies); god knows what else. I bought a bunch of random stuff for 15 reais (about $6) and have eaten most of it! then i tasted various fresh cheeses from minas gerais state and guava paste that goes with it. then i walked through the fruit part where all the vendors are shouting "(insert
sao paulo2
view from joe\'s aparment again fruit here) (insert price here)!!!!" over and over again. then they're like "Oi! Experimenta! Mamao, morango, abacaxí!" (Hey! Taste! Papaya, strawberry, pineapple!) btw i said earlier that squash was abacaxía but its actually abóbora. oops. then i drank fresh sugar cane juice and bought a bunch of jabuticaba, which are these little dark purple/black fruits, a little bigger than a grape, and you bite the skin and suck out the white acidic/sour stuff inside and spit out the pit. its really tangy, kind of citrusy but better. then came all the seafood vendors (japanese, naturally) and i wanted sooo bad to take photos but there were all these little kids running around asking for money...not a good situation for a flashy digital camera. oh and i bought herb mixes and dried rose and lavender potpurri. my bag of gifts smells SOO good!
Ok this is getting really long so i'm going to add another entry that deals with sunday. ciao ciao.
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