Kermit Impressions at ReBuilders´ Source

http://www.mediafire.com/download.php?mqzdjntzynw

Photos from Mark Winston Griffith´s Campaign

http://picasaweb.google.com/zoesull/MWGCampaign#

Campaigning in Brooklyn

For the first couple weeks of September, I worked on Mark Winston Griffith´s campaign for city council in Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights, Brooklyn. It was an amazing experience, and while Mark didn´t win the primary this past Tuesday, he only lost by about 600 votes. The incumbent, who was running against 7 other people, including Mark, squeaked by with only 30% of the vote.

Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights are really more one community than two. They share amazingly beautiful brownstones and a population that is almost entirely African-American and West Indian. Sometimes during my campaign work, I would have to ask an older person to repeat themselves because I am not accustomed to West Indian accents.

While the neighborhood has more than its share of problems, there is much to love about it, too. As I would head into the campaign office in the morning, I would walk up Nostrand Avenue and say hello to the people I met, who would actually return my greeting and my smile. The same would happen in the afternoons as I would head past the brownstones on my way to knock on doors: the families or Seniors working in the front yards or chatting on the stoops would return my pleasantries with real openness and friendliness.

Two Sundays ago, I went to a church to campaign for Mark. Unfortunately, I wasn´t allowed to make an announcement during that part of the service, but since I was there, I participated in the entire 3-hour ritual. It was amazing. Everyone looked good. Everyone was dressed up, everyone except me, although fortunately I had chosen a decent t-shirt instead of a tank top or a t-shirt with a snarky phrase on it. There were an abundance of ladies with big hats. One woman even had a silver dress that was cut in triangles and had tassles hanging from it. She had a hat to match, too.

The sermon was about recognizing old enemies in new situations, and the pastor made it clear that, even if we have a Black President, racism is alive and well. I wondered if this kind of sermon would be given to a more mixed audience. I was the only white person in the church. I also considered that all of the energy, hope and faith, that people expressed through songs, was probably one of the things that has kept African-Americans going in this country with its history of slavery and racism. The power of the music and the congregation´s response to it also made me wonder if this wasn´t a connection to a truly African heritage, in spite of the centuries that have passed since Black folk were first brought to this continent.

At a certain point, the Pastor asked those who were attending the church for the first time to stand, so I stood, along with a handful of other people. In the same way that people in the community offered smiles as I went about my canvassing, so again did people in the church come to extend handshakes and to say hello to me.

On the other side of this, there are many problems. The foreclosure rate in this neighborhood is one of the highest in the city, and one out of five families has lost their home because of unscrupulous lending. Jay-Z, the rap artist, is from an infamous housing project in this area, the Marcy Projects, and fellow campaign workers noticed gang signs around the projects. Just a few days before the election, three people were shot in a housing project, and some of the canvassers who had been brought on for the final push were terrified because they ended up walking by the bodies.

One older woman I spoke with told me that she wanted to return to her youthful home of Virginia because she was tired of everything in Bed Stuy. A day or so earlier she had seen a police office punch a woman in the face because she was asking about something that was happening to another man.

Bed-Stuy and Crown Heights are beautiful, and while there is crime and violence, there is also a substantial educated, middle class. A couple of the young men from the neighborhood who were working on the campaign attend the University of Chicago and Carnegie Mellon.

I hope that Mark wins in November. The community needs someone who is going to put himself out there and do. It needs someone who is going to care, and Mark cares.

Link to my photos from Brazil

http://picasaweb.google.com.br/zoesull/Brazil#

Se la

"Se la" is an expression in Portuguese that means "whatever" or "I dunno." It's just one of those things that I have learned to use as an interjection here, although, admittedly, my fluency with this is nowhere near a native Brazilian.

Anyway, this morning I went to the swimming beach near the hostel where I'm staying. For those of you who have been following this blog for a while, it's the same beach where I spent the day with a Frenchwoman when I was here in Salvador in March. It's the same beach where people applaud the sunset.

So, today I was swimming, and I thought I would share with you all some thoughts about the water. It was clean and clear and a greenish-blue color. The water is so clear that as I swam, I could see schools of fish swimming beneath me. The bottom was also clearly visible, with big, black rocks occasionally breaking the taupe-colored sandy floor.

About a week ago, Talia, the American writer, and I came to this beach at dusk because I wanted to swim at that time of day. There were fluffy, steel-gray clouds in the sky that the sunset highlighted with rose and orange. The container ships that dotted the horizon faded gradually into the blackness of the evening as the last rays of light disappeared. But the water below me seemed illuminated. Granted, it was the super-powerful floodlights pointed at the beach that kept the water looking like it was almost daytime, and that allowed me to continue seeing my feet as I floated around. Se la, I thought it was cool that the sky and everything else had become an oily black, and I could still see my feet under water.

A couple of days ago I tried to change my ticket to come back in mid-July, but Northwest told me that they didn't have anything available, even checking up to July 19th. Obviously I'll keep you all posted, but I'm starting to think that at least this segment of my Brazilian adventures is coming to a close. As a result, I've decided to start really acting like a tourist. Hence the beach today. And tomorrow a day trip to a nearby island. And more photos at the local market, which, once again, makes it clear that Salvador is the developing world.

Oh, if any of you have suggestions for temporary work that would let me save some money to come back here, please let me know. While I would consider things in New Orleans and maybe Madison, New York is the most likely landing place for me. Plus, I miss pub quiz. And all you people who make life so good. Love you all.

Americans from Both Ends of the Spectrum

Last Thursday I flew to Salvador. Salvador is Brazil's second largest tourist destination, after Rio. Arriving here, I felt like I was in Africa. That feeling has faded somewhat now, but not much. I certainly feel more like I'm in a developing country here than I did in Rio or in Belo Horizonte. The scene around the hostel where I'm staying is really pretty similar to Nairobi in terms of run-down buildings, tropical weather, and a population that is around 80% Afro-Brazilian. Salvador marks one of the boundary lines between the wealthy and whiter Southeast of Brazil and the much poorer Northeast.

Here at the hostel in Salvador, I've met some really annoying Americans. The fact that they are in their early 20s and totally unaware of other people is what makes them annoying. One woman is an acrobat and just got a job with the local circus. She seems to have no sense that speaking louder to people doesn't make one more accepted or loved. She also ate an entire pineapple that my friends and I bought without asking if it was OK. Being in a hostel does not mean we are living in a commune.

On the other end of the spectrum is another woman, also from the US, Thalia. We went out Sunday night with 3 Brazilian women who are all anthropologists. We had a great time talking about racism in the US and Brazil, the African culture in the State of Bahia, and othe shunning of groundbreaking anthropologits, and other juicy subjects. Sheila is the name of the woman who introduced me and Thalia to her friends. Sheila and I connected through couch surfing. She works with the Public Prosecutor's office as an advocate for minorities. One of the things that she mentioned is a program to train indigenous teachers so that they can teach in their own communities. This is part of a government initiative to make sure that the indigenous people in Brazil have some basic rights and are not completely marginalized. One positive thing I see here, although I admit that my knowledge is superficial, is that some indigenous communities have retained their cultures. Sheila pointed out that here in the Northeast, the indigenous languages have essentially disappeared, but she also said that there are efforts to preserve what is left.

This education initiative is something that I'm hoping to do a story about for FSRN and maybe some other places. In fact, tomorrow I'm going to visit a training session for indigenous teachers. The only downside is that I'll have to spend 12 hours on a bus to get there and back....

Rocinha

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Cantagalo, a favela that lies on a hill between Copacabana and Ipanema. I'd been there before, but this time, in order to get to the Residents' Association office, I got a ride on the back of a moto taxi. There was a squadron of young guys with motorcycles at the bottom of the hill, on the street leading up to the favela, and the mini-van that makes the trip wasn't ready to go yet, so it was an easy choice.
Having seen this, that people ride as passengers on motorcycles for short hops in the favelas, I wasn't surprised when I went to Rocinha today and saw probably 3 or 4 different moto taxi companies waiting near the entrance.
Rocinha is the largest favela in Latin America. The census calculated the population in 2000 at 68,000, but the President of the Residents' Association estimated today that there are around 160,000 people living there now. While the City of Rio estimates that approximately 1,000,000 people live in favelas in the city, the Rocinha Residents' Association President put that number as more realistically around 2,000,000, which is one-third of the city's total population. I was there to talk with him about the compromise that the Association had reached with the State of Rio de Janeiro around building a 3-meter-high, concrete wall to stop the favela from spreading further into the forest bordering Rocinha and other favelas.
As I waited for someone to come get me near the entrance to the favela, I regretted not having my audio recorder. There was music blasting from a stand across the street where the latest hip hop and other tunes were available. Moto taxis cut this with their buzzing, up and down the street, with and without passengers.
And I noticed the electrical towers just on the other side of the row of shops in front of me. And when I settled a bit more into waiting, I also noticed the skein of electrical cables hanging practically in front of my face and criscrossing the street all the way into the favela.
At one point, a guy drove by on a motorcycle with a big smile on his face (no helmet, of course. No one wears helmets.), waving to someone on my side of the street. He also had some sort of machine gun slung across his chest. What surprised me was not so much seeing this, as I know that the drug traffickers in the favelas are armed, but the fact that I was totally unfazed. Maybe it's because he himself was relaxed and jovial. I dunno. But I did find it striking how we really can get accustomed to pretty much anything.
For the past few weeks, I've been debating whether to stay here in Rio or head back to Belo Horizonte. For the moment, I'm going to stay here. My plan is to try and live more in the moment and just enjoy whatever the hell I'm doing. It is also to make choices to do more of those things that seem like fun.