In Rio

My Mom went back to the US on Sunday, and I stayed in Rio. I´ve started working with an organization called Catalytic Communities, which is actually going through a transition of its own. Cat Comm has done a tremendous amount of work with local communities here in Rio, and now it is moving to a virtual format. It will have a web site that houses a database of projects all over the world. The database will describe what issues the projects address, how they work, and what they need. My role here is to help produce a promotional video. Really, I´m more comfortable as a photographer, but I´m going to give this a shot, and we´ll see what comes out of it.
Today I went with Rose, Cat Comm´s project coordinator, to a favela called Acarí. We met with some local leaders who will hopefully be featured in the video. Among the people we met were some men who are involved with the local Escola (school) do Samba. These are the organizations in Rio that put together the big groups that parade through the "sambodromo" at carnaval, competing for the best costumes, music, dances, etc.
The school built an auditorium for screening videos and films, since there is another group in the community that is teaching these production skills. The escola also opened up a game room with fussball, pool, and other games. The local police, however, broke the games, ripping the felt on the pool table, and forced the escola to close the auditorium down. Some of the people with me and Rose hypothesized that the police were acting in conjunction with other community leaders who saw these facilities as a threat to their power base.
Something that I found interesting in this regard was a newspaper dedicated to the issues of the favelas that featured a front-page photo of a protest of Israel´s attacks on Gaza. One placard in the photo compared the tanks in Gaza to police armored vehicles in Rio.
There is clearly an opportunity for me to work with CatComm for as long as my visa is good here in Brazil. However, I think that when the video project is done, hopefully in a few weeks, I´m going to go back to Salvador. And maybe I´ll see about working as a crew member on a sailboat so that I can learn how to sail....