Ah, the Humanity!

(Written Tuesday, May 19, 14th day in Brazil)

I caught the bus mid-morning to go out to Pirajá. This was my first trip out there by myself, and it went very quickly. All the connections were quick, there were few passengers, and we hit mostly green lights. Coming back in the evening was a different story! Jocelita and Fabricio joined me for the ride to Rio Vermelho so they could participate in the farewell program/party for the Yale group, which leaves early tomorrow morning. But there was a traffic jam on the highway (BR-324). The trip ended up taking 2 1/2 hours. Luckily, we had seats. Some folks were standing the entire time, as the bus lurched foreward a couple of feet at a time. The other side of the coin to our predicament was the fact that thousands of people standing at bus stops along the road had no buses to catch, because they were all caught in traffic. Ah, the humanity! It is quite something to see such massive crowds suffer in silence, day after day, just to get where they need to go to make a living for their families.

Fabricio was napping when I arrived, because he had participated in a soccer game at 5 a.m. His older brother, Claudio, stopped by while I was waiting for him to get ready. Claudio (about whom I had forgotten, I'm ashamed to say) lives a few houses away.

Fabricio and I went to the store so I could buy a pair of work gloves, which were more like knitted kid gloves than work gloves, but they were better than nothing. We took the big garbage bags down to QZ and started cleaning up. My goal was to pick up all non-biodegradeable material from around the outside of the building. What a mess! It was truly, truly disgusting. The neighbors, knowing that the QZ facility was unoccupied most of the time, have gotten in the habit of throwing their garbage over the wall. Cleaning up was like digging through a landfill. There was layer after layer of plastic bags full of rotting garbage, plastic bottles, old clothes and shoes, and many many things completely unidentifiable. Also, despite being biodegradeable, I decided to break down and carry out the large sheets of "madeira compensada" (plywood) that was so rotten it could be folded in half like a piece of paper. If there was anything good to come out of the garbage, it was the fact that a few seeds from leftover fruits and vegetables had taken root and were growing into very healthy plants. Fabricio pulled up one carrot which was bigger than most of the ones you get at the grocery store in the U.S. We were careful to leave a nice big eggplant vine alone so it might yield something in the future. We didn't work long, but we worked hard. We filled 5 large bags with garbage and hauled it out to the street, just in time for the garbage truck to come by (they look the same as in the U.S.) While we worked, we were joined by Edilson, Jocelita's oldest boy, as well as Gigo and Willian. The guys all felt that it would be better to finish the cleanup job in a "mutirão"-type effort with Fabricio's capoeira group. This made some sense to me, but of course meant we weren't going to finish the job today. Before we broke for lunch, Edilson ripped out some of the vegetation growing on the retaining wall buttresses and destroyed a very large termite mound built on top of the concrete wall. We tried to burn the debris, but it was too wet.

About termites: When you see how these creatures prosper in this climate, you come to understand why everything is made of concrete. Although there is very little wood in the QZ structure, there is some–the rafters for the roof, the door, etc. The termites build these meandering tubes all along the brick walls until they find something made of wood. You can easily scrape off the a section of the tube and see termites busily running back and forth inside. They're fascinating little insects, but they have to be monitored all the time.

Back at Fabricio's house, Isabel had fixed a nice (and, thankfully, small) lunch. She really is a good cook. I want to get her recipes to give to the Sisters. Rather than going back to work after lunch, we hung around and listened to music and rested. He introduced me to a new (old) group that's been around forever, Roupas Novas (New Clothes). Monalisa told me her favorite artists were 50 Cent, Beyoncé, and Chris Brown.

Eventually, Jocelita and Nilzete showed up and we had a meeting about the youth trip planning. Unfortunately, I was being particularly inarticulate during the meeting. When confronted with complicated things to say, I get all my verb tenses mixed up. They helped me along, finishing most of my thoughts for me.

I conveyed our hope that QZ could be up and running for a month in advance (June) of the Mutirão. We will pay one minimum salary per person for June and July to get things going. If they want to stretch that money out so things can be sustained for a longer period, all the better. I expressed that OUR goal (which I acknowledged is not necessarily their goal) is to have this two month period serve as seed time/money for something that might be self-sustaining.

There is no shortage of ideas for what the space can be used as. They know a woman who needs a space to rent for her creche (day-care), and the downstairs is perfectly set up for that. Fabricio brought up his idea of using the space for imprinting t-shirts. (The women didn't seem real keen on this idea.) Later, on the bus, Fabricio and Jocelita were brainstorming/fantasizing about having a computer room (what they call LAN) set up in QZ. I told them I'd check on whether anybody in the U.S. had old laptops they would donate, which could be brought down in carry-on bags. Interestingly, Fabricio has been using the building to hold meetings of a support group of young people who would like to have homes of their own but are unable to afford them and must live with their families. This is, in my mind, a perfect activity to be held at QZ.

We discussed activities for the youth group. There is a lot of work to be done. Jocelita is going to do the research to find out how much it will cost to install wiring and hook up the water. They have a friend who will donate the actual wires. All that would be left is to get Sergio to help facility tapping into the electric grid. Jocelita is also going to ask a local mason for a quote to plaster (reboca) the upstairs. It would be great if we could actually bring enough to get these three projects done. Our students could help with the plastering, mixing the ingredients and hauling them in to the professionals, building the passive solar water heater (aquecedor de agua), and perhaps making a sign for the front and doing some landscaping. Programmatically speaking, we will probably have a musical instrument building workshop with kids, some simple language games, capoeira and/or ju-jitsu, and soccer. Plus the t-shirts. I think this is all probably too much, but we can sort things out over the next couple of weeks.

Before hopping on the bus for the LONG ride back to Rio Vermelho, Fabricio made me a Nevada, which is a type of alcoholic drink. He sent Monique out on the errand to collect the necessary ingredients: vodka, sweetened condensed milk, limes, ice, and a blender. I have begun to realize that although their house is tiny, the residents of their little corner of the neighborhood function more like a family compound, where they borrow and lend items among themselves. Need ice? Run to grandma's where there is a freezer with some ice trays. Need a blender? Whistle over to the next door neighbor (vizinha). Also, I began to realize that family life is very different here. When you're "stuck" in such a small house, you learn to cooperate and play with each other. Privacy is non-existent. I imagine that after 15 years of never having any private time or space, a teenager with raging hormones would do almost anything to find (or make) a magical moment with the opposite sex. If an opportunity for alone time came along, it might seem as though it were a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity. Here's a very short clip of us sitting around in the living room listening to music.

Back at the Casa, the carnival group Os Negões (a relatively new and young bloco afro) made one last appearance for the Yale farewell celebration. I should qualify that by saying six people from Os Negões performed. There are 300 musicians in the group, and during Carnival, approximately 2000 march with them through the streets of Salvador. In the clip, notice the young kid playing the bass drum in front. He's only thirteen and he's got all the right moves. When he plays, it's as if every beat of the drum gives him new joy.