.....

Es momento de aceptarlo, no soy un blogger, no me sale... le intento y le intento y na más no da... así que me rindo... hasta el cuarto, quinto... siguiente intento... gracias.

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Têm Dendé, Têm Dendé

Sé que hace más de un mes que no me aparezco para escribir por aqui. Sé que es algo injusto que me venga a dar la vuelta con prisa... pero igual pienso que más vale tarde que nunca y que para los cuatro lectores que tengo será un gusto y no una falta de educación.

Así que señores, si no han sido incluidos en la lista que recibe mis reportes en inglés, me avise y se los mando... si de todos modos están aquí para encontrar novedades, se las debo... pues tengo ganas de escribir de ustedes, lo que extraño, de lo que me falta en este pueblo perdido del nordeste brasileños.

Tortillas. Básicamente eso. No extraño un baño, una regadera, el agua limpia, el olor a humo, el español, la cerveza ni la fiesta. Extraño el maíz. Somos envueltos en masa y creo que no nos damos mucho cuenta cuando estamos dentro.

Aquí el color del cielo es muy claro y el color de los niños es tan mixto que no creo se pueda catalogar, ellos mismos sufren de una falta de identidad. La vida rural me lleva a pensar que no hay más diferencias, es igual aquí que allá que acullá (acullá?) debe ser, puede ser, quiero saber.

Ya veremos...

Disculpen la prisa y la distancia...

Sólo les adelanto que habrá músicas y videos cuando esto termine. Habrá fotos y textos. Charlas interminables, discusiones y momentos. La capoeira está creciendo, yo también.

Para leer el reporte completo en inglés y con fotos vayan a www.iicdmichigan.org en la página principal hasta abajo hay un linck a nuestros textos.

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Vou me embora pra Bahia...

Y sí... mañana nos vamos a Bahia. Ya me la estoy empezando a creer. Casi a dos semanas de viaje me doy un momento y trato de escribir en español, dirán que es una farolada, pero cuando uno está realmente inmiscuido en el mundo externo, el idioma se va disolviendo. La cosa ahora es cuál mundo externo me está envolviendo, o dentro de cuál me estoy poniendo.

El viaje por Brasil empezó hace casi dos semanas y podría decir que está casi al final, aunque para mi a penas comenzará. Hasta este punto fue todo introspección, reconocimiento y valentía; a partir de mañana será el doble, será realidad, cuidado y mandinga.

Hemos visitado organizaciones, hemos visto la televisión, hemos comido lo más que podemos, hemos extrañado nuestros nidos y hemos creado pequeños recovecos de nostalgia. Nos hemos quedado en casa de voluntarios y de madres de voluntarios, hemos vivido la pérdida y el dolor de estas madres que, como las nuestras, añoran a sus hijos que están por ir a África, queseque a salvar el mundo. De esta experiencia saco mucho conocimiento y fuerza, en estas madres veo la importancia de lo que hago, veo el corazón de mi camino. Ellas nos preparan de comer y nuestro placer ven el de sus hijas, en los miedos y en los corajes ven las manos de ellas, que están en la misma batalla. Hoy estas segundas madres nos lloran. Una noche más en el aeropuerto, una noche más de mochila al hombro, de investigar cuál es el camión con destino clandestino.

La pobreza no es distinta, la miseria no es otra, el tráfico no cobra vidas ajenas, la basura huele igual, la desgracia humana tiene el mismo nombre y las barreras son aquellas que encontramos en cualquier sistema. El voluntario no está fuera del sistema todo el tiempo, pero tiene la posibilidad de darse el lujo de ver desde la perifería la realidad, puede decidir si volver o no, si abrir la vereda utópica del cambio o si volver a consumir y a desear aquello que está hundiendo a otros.

Esta no es más que una lucha por la igualdad.

Por mi parte estoy enamorada ya de la vida rural. Aquí, en Recife, recordé el tránsito, recordé el olor a camión, el viento contaminado y caliente, recordé recordé recordé...

Bahia, tierra de esclavos, tierra de resistencia, de danza, de macumba, de capoeira. Tierra de gente invisible de ojos profundos.

todo este dolor es porque ya siento la diferencia... porque ya sé que no soy la misma... y da nostalgia, ver como aquella nena se va hundiendo en el espejo, diciéndome adiós. No soy más lo que fui, no leo libros como antes, no escribo ensayos para otros, no me preocupa tener eso o aquello... No me voy a dar mi taco, esto es un proceso lento... sólo hay que aceptarlo para que duela menos.

Veremos que sigue...

Bahia

Sao Paulo

Rio de Janeiro...

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Foi na ora que eu chegei...

So. I was thinking how to start this little report, this first piece of the puzzle of the travel around Brazil. To be honest the ideas that I have are unwritable now, are really diffuse, but at the same time that's the magic part, to understand what I think writing it down. So, I'm learning how to let go my feelings and thoughts in English, its not easy when my mind is learning Portuguese and my blood runs in Spanish. So may be the result will be funky, but that's me today, a funky Mexican traveling around Brazil.


The Travel started last Wednesday, from IICD to Detroit airport to Miami to Manaus, the biggest city in the state of Amazonas in Brazil. When I think in the amazonas I think in animals and plants, but now I also think in big factories, in pollution, in poverty, expensive transportation, crazy traffic, and rivers, amazing rivers. During the two days in Manaus we visit the permaculture project of the amazonas and a museum that show the way that the with slaves where living inside the amazonas.

The visit to the permaculture project was really amazing, Im still impress about it and Im really willing to know more about it, because the system that we saw there is ... like a dream, a really autosustentable environment. They have 35 pigs that produce the methanol gas for the kitchen, they have a completely functional dry bathroom where all the human feces work as compost for the big gardens and the amazing fruit trees. They have chickens, hens, and ducks that are part of the system giving eggs and organic material for the pesticides and the compost. The water system is unreal, all the waters comes from the roofs and is filtrated by different thanks with different natural filters. Everything there is cyclic and reusable. The next team needs to go there and... DRH should have a place like this. The pictures will come later because know I'm using an other computer just to take all of this out of me.

The visit to the Museum was interesting because we met a lot of local people that is passionate about the indigenous of amazonas. We had a little adventure to get there because we needed to take a little boat, and of course that all of them wanted us to pay a lot of money to takes us to every place but the one that we wanted to go. At the end we found a public transport to go there, we lost a lot of time but was worth it. The Museum is really small and the idea is to recreate the old Ceringeiros (may be that's not the right spelling). The men from the Northeast of Brazil use to go there to work in the jungle taking the rubber (borracha in Portuguese) of the trees. It was a slavery work, a really crazy system. The cool part of the museum was the lady that works there, she took us to the places and did a representation of everything, she took out the rubber from a tree and show us how they make the product. We talk with this lady and at the end she was really interesting about our project so she didn-t ask for money, she said from volunteer to volunteer.

Now... the magic part of this is to understand that the investigation period is every day in every little second of the life. To be honest I cannot place the deep thougths that I have about people, judgement, talking, identity, nationality, food, money, racism, fear... but everything is around that, around the point of who we are and who we want to be... we travel to know something, to meet somebody, so we cannot wait to that moment, we have to go for it, and be really awake to not miss it... is so easy to get lost. I'm sure that I will not be the same after this, after every single step in my life. After this lady in Fortaleza who is in love of her volunteer daughter... who kiss me like kissing her.

People is people and we will never be perfect, so why to ask the others to be who we want them to be? why to talk about somebody as if we knew him or her? nobody is their nationality or their color or their social class... nobody is their language or their look... nobody is everybody.

Lola Diaz Barriga
11 April 2010

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Era meu mano, era eu...

February 21, 2010

Dear brother,

Sometimes, when I find myself alone and in peace, I think of you. Sometimes I see you as a victim, but other times I just see you as one piece of the whole picture that my life is. As you know, I’m an activist. Since you left I started fueling all this strength in me, all this hope. Maybe because I wanted to save you... maybe because I needed this courage to be free of fear and pain, I took the stand of my life without notice. I started reading about the Movement and the rebellion; about the troubled youth in Mexico City that, like you and me, had suicide thoughts every day, that was using drugs, that was losing all kinds of hope, that was resign to live without any sense. Maybe you didn’t do it on purpose, but it happened, you decided to leave me and I decided to change, to save that youth that was dying... like you.

Now I see myself like a woman, a rebellious one, with the strength to do anything, to fight against anyone, to change and mobilize a community, to teach equality to kids who think that crying shows weakness, that being a girl means being insignificant or, as you felt, that being a man means being unbreakable. I’m a woman that no man can touch with violence; thanks to you. I am an agent of change now, a militant that wants to shut down all the madness that suppress us and kills us.

I remember that you loved Bob Marley, in fact, when you left I ran to your room to take all your cd’s. I found notebooks filled with the lyrics and little notes you made on the side. I was 14 years old when I discover that that music represented your departure and my birth. Next week I’ll be 25 and Bob Marley still sings your name every time that I go out with my comrades to organize a protest, an action, or a campaign. He taught me with the words what you didn’t want to teach me (because I was a girl?)... “Me say war”, “Emancipate ourselves from mental slavery; None but ourselves can free our minds” “Until there no longer. First class and second class citizens of any nation. Until the color of a man’s skin is of no more significance than the color of his eyes - Me say war.”

I’m singing, brother, I’m singing the songs of freedom; I’m fighting with my hands and my stories. I’m part of “the war of images, ideas, messages, and culture”. I dream with equality and I walk with this dream teaching the kids a world without violence, a battle without blood, a game with girls and boys doing exactly the same thing, a love without gender, a future full of options for them to choose. I believe that I can help these kids as I couldn't help you.

I read the other day a letter that Doyle Canning wrote to the young organizers of the future. He reminds us that “we are working to build globalized, cross-cultural, queer-positive, equitable networks and movements. We are working to challenge oppression and domination in all of its forms. We are working locally in our neighborhoods, schools, and union shops. We are mobilizing to flood the streets in big cities when the so-called rulers must be reminded that they are few, and we are many.” We are not looking for acceptance, tolerance, or respect we are fighting for a social change.

I’m so young sometimes, that I feel my spirit cry. I thank God for the talent that he gave me and I thank You for the deep courage that you planted on me. My life, in this moment, is ruled by the learning that I can get from the old minds, the big ones, the wise ones, because I think that, as Lauryn Hill my favorite hip-hop poet, says: “we look at Bob Marley, you know, and we say “Ok, let’s just grow locks and wear the clothes and have the band”, and we have no many idea how many years of struggle and pain and suffering that made that content. You see what I’m saying? You can’t get it from the outside in. Truth is from the inside out. You know, and the way we’ve been trying to heal and be healed is with this topical, surface, superficial, temporary solution. And I’m telling you, true healing is from the inside out. You know, we’ve been told to protect our outer man while our inner man is dying.” So I’m building myself out of the box of the social doctrine, looking for the problem, the cause and the solution. And to really achieve this we need to be congruent with our ideas, our acts and our words, as Gandhi taught me: “Happiness is when what you think, what you say, and what you do are in harmony”. He also taught me that “Nobody can hurt me without my permission”, because I’m the one who decide anything in my life... “I don’t have to slave anymore. I’m ready to be me” (Lauryn Hill).

You used to read my first poems. I remember your eyes trying to understand my immature handwriting. I remember myself loosing my notebook in your room “by accident”. You never said anything and I have to thank you, at this point because that silence is the one that moves me today to write, to read, to sing and dance because Poetry is an Insurgent Art: “Poetry the perfume of resistance” (Ferlinghetti).

I have to finish with a last quote that makes me think of you, it comes from another hip-hop poet, Lupe Fiasco: “I know we’ll meet again, so it’s never me against the world.”

Axé,
Lola.

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Homem dame o dinhero...

I realice that now my e-mails (some of them) have to be in English, because the horizon of friends is growing and almost all the Spanish speakers are English speakers too, so... also its a good practice for me, because my writing in English sucks, so I have to improve.

Ok, I'm in a funky coffee house in Westport, Kansas City, Missouri (I think). A few minutes ago I wanted to cry... yes, Lola cries for everything, but this time I really didn't find a reason, I was just feeling without control, but... as a matter of fact I am in control, because the reason why I am here, is because I have to take care of my team, which, by the way, is doing fundraising right now outside the markets. I left the last girl and while I was driving to my destination the car start doing something weird... hm, I can say that better... the thing in the car that shows the speed start getting crazy, moving from 0 to 200 miles!!! obviously I freak out!! I couldn't go to raise money, I was so worry. Yesterday the car run out of battery, so I had to jump it on with an other car... So, I'm here, in a coffee beside the mechanic, one nice guy who may be will not lie to me. That's why I hate mechanics, they take advantage of the inexpertise ok this young girl trying to do things right.
I know that this time I should be raising money, and I feel bad for the other girls, because I am warm, drinking coffee... but I also know that is my responsibility now to take care of the car so we can go back home. I'm saying this for myself, may be... so I can feel better. Yesterday I fundraise $182, so... if today I don't reach the goal I will do it later... I guess...

This is the story of today, my dear friends... give me words of wisdom and laugh of me if you can. As my friends in Mexico use to say, I'm the mother duck, always worry, always taking care of the others and saying to everybody what to do... I just hope they fix the car today because someone kneed to pick up the girls... shit, this is complicated, its a big test, a way of discovering of what are we capable. This shows the way that we already walked, the wisdom and knowledge that others gave us in some point. Being independent its a big deal... nostalgia is empty, but not me (1:15 pm on my moleskine notebook)

(2:25 pm) I'm thinking that if we are able to learn of everything in life... its worth it to live, even if sometimes the hours are to long, the people to different and the world to far away (still here)

(2:35 pm) I saw the mechanic driving the car to check it 30 minutes ago and he is not back yet. Should i say something? is not that we have a lot of money for gas... shit! this people... why can't every one be honest? why?!

(2:45 pm) What does waste time means? When I don't have someone to talk with I have to talk with myself writing... imagining that someone is reading me, my thoughts... now I'm not as shill as I was...

(3:00 pm) I feel stupid... making stories in my head... "may be they want to steal the car", "may be they crash the car", "may be they took the car in and I didn't see"... shit, are you having fun reading my stupid notes????... may be I'm just bothering you, but this is what we do... the people alone in a coffee house trying to understand the situation. As you are not here I have to e-mail you this so it can make sense, because I kneed answers, you know?... if you where here we were having (that tens I don't know) this conversation, and you could tell me "easy Lola, everything is gonna be alright, the car is inside, there are not stealing you the gas, they will tell you the true and they will fix the damn thing"... and I will insist "but..."

The guy came!!! the nice mister... he came to say to me that it's ok, that he was driving and it's ok......... "shit Lola, I told you so..." He will fix the fucking light... hm... I don't have money!!! shit... life its complicated, why I cannot live just with my pen and my little notebook? (seriously, are you having fun?)

So they didn't drive the car for an hour, or they did and I will notice later... at least in this place they refill the coffee for free.

(3:28 pm) The guy, mechanic, came to drink a coffee, he is on a table right in front of me, talking with an other old guy... uffff! I could make a grate story about it... (I'm glad I don't have my computer) (how's my English going?)

Ok... lets say that his name is Tom, just because I like to call people Tom. Tom has 57 years, he learned car mechanics as a kid, with his father, in the earliest 50's. He is from Kansas City, Missouri, so he doesn't open the mouth when he talks. His wife died a few years ago, and his daughter is the one that helps him in the house with the cleaning and cooking. He bought the business when he thought it was time to be independent. The wife encourage him telling that she will help him doing the accounting and everything so he could just fix cars, activity that he loved.Tom talks with the cars, you know? He know what is wrong with them by talking. Just like christians do with god.

The wife, Stephanie, knew that the way of making Tom happy was giving him the time to talk with the cars and the opportunity of touching as more cars as possible. She knew it because she was there when Tom's father teach him how to listen the pain of the metal, electric, and soul of the car. She was Tom's neighbor, so she knew perfectly   well how to make Tom happy... she just had to be different that Tom's mother, who hated cars more than anything.

Today Tom was talking with a Windstar, Ford, 2000, when the memory appeared. It was there, inside the music of the burning nods of the wheel; Stephanie, the bike lover wife of Tom, dying in a car accident... dying because a stupid mechanic lie to a costumer saying that the car was ready... when it wasn't.

"Tom's Auto Service. Where your car will say if it's ready!"
"No Tom, that's not a good slogan", said Stephanie, "Tom's Auto Service. Let your car talk to us"

The business was doing good, it was not the most busy in town... "stupid mexicans, they come and charge cheap stealing the costumers", Tom use to say, "They think they know about cars but... come on, they are indians". Yes, Tom didn't understand about politics, borders or anything, he just talk with cars.

So the memory came and he decide to take a brake. "Hey, Van", he said to the Windstar, "I will go for a coffee ok?, I'll be back so you can finish the joke that you where telling me ok?". And here is Tom, in the westport coffee house, drinking a italian cappuccino with his wife's memory.

(4:00 pm) I have no place to hide... (drawings)

(4:15 pm) That's why I ride bikes.

(4:25 pm) 15 minutes ago I received a text message that said "hey" for a unknown number from Missouri. Now I received a message saying "can I buy u a cup of coffee"... I'm freaking out!!!! is this a movie???? this is the team cell phone, no one from Missouri has the number!!!! shit...

(4:35 pm) car is ready.





Enjoy.

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Divaga, Divaga...

Siempre espero algo para postear, pero la verdad es que siempre pasan muchas cosas y la espera se vuelve muy inútil, porque no logro escoger nunca lo perfecto... y soy una persona que no cree en lo perfecto, que cree en lo humano (lo cual casi siempre es erróneao). Ahora decidí escribir sin tema, sin título, pues tuve la oportunidad y el tiempo (gran anoranza *no tengo enhe).

Estos días se han puesto emocionantes, comenzó el entrenamiento para mi equipo. Ahora el tiempo se acorta antes del viaje a Brasil, por lo que hay que ponerse las pilas, preparar los estudios, las prácticas del idioma, la recaudacion de fondos y la chamba. La semana que viene estaremos todos los días trabajando en el refugio del que ya platique. La tarea principal estos días es quitar la nieve de los caminos, pues con tanta lluvia blanca no se puede hacer nada, ni mover los autos, ni sacar la basura, ni recibir gente, ni nada. Hoy, como parte del fin de semana de construcción, me tocó agarrar el pico y la pala. En mi mente cantaba canciones del tipo ~o brother where are thou~ mientras picaba el suelo para romper el hielo y luego poder pasar la máquina. Les juro que después de hacerlo dos horas lo único que uno quiere es quitarse las grandes botas y el traje de astronauta para hecharse a escribir en un blog que la vida vale la pena, que uno entrena en la tierra el crecimiento, que en lo de ayer podemos encontrar sólo una idea del hoy y que si todos nos detuvieramos un segundo, quizá, el mundo sería más verde...

Estoy viajando, y es que ... hice lo de la nieve por tres o cuatro horas.... ya ni sé usar los puntos... esto viajando... en la sobriedad viajo mucho por aqui. Voy a preparar la recaudación de fondos, viajaremos a Kansas City y a Oklahoma City a pedir dinero, talonear en las calles será lo mío... escogimos las ciudades con menos frío, pero ... pssss es difícil decir... el clentamiento global nos puede hacer la jugada... ya veremos, ya les diré... 750 dlls por semana no suena a tanto... 3mil en 4 semanas ???? yes... possible, more than possible

é so alegria... obligada mestre pedrinho.

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