On the Road

I left Florianopolis heading towards Salvador by bus two weeks ago. The distance is roughly equivalent to following the coast from New York to New Orleans, so I stopped in several places along the way to keep from going stir crazy on the bus.
After a night in Rio de Janeiro, I headed out to Vitoria, in the state of Espiritu Santu. At the bus station, I got into a conversation with a retired Afro-Brazilian guy, Diogo, who had played professional soccer in the US and had raised his children in Indiana. We took the same bus, and I ended up staying ith him and his wife in the city of Vila Velha, just across the river from Vitoria.
When Diogo and his wife came back to Brazil in 2002, Diogo started a soccer league for children from about 7 to 17 years old. The league operated successfully for a few years until a local politician who owned the field where they practiced told Diogo that they couldn't use it any more. The politician felt threatened by Diogo's connection to the community. Diogo, on the other hand, is confident that he will find a way to start again.

Vitoria is becoming an oil boomtown, sort of like Houston in the 1980s. Oil and natural gas have recently been discovered off the Brazilian coast, and you can even see an oil rig in Rio de Janeiro's harbor. Vitoria is the epicenter of the exploration and operations related to all of this, and I counted at least 9 different skyscrapers going up in the city when I was there. Diogo and his wife said that one of the unfortunate aspects of this boom is that the population of Espiritu Santu doesn't have the kind of educational preparation to take advantage of all of the jobs that are being created. As a result, the buildings that are going up will house people from other countries and other parts of Brazil, instead of providing new jobs for the local people.
As Ligia prepared lunch, I read part of a magazine commemorating Barack Obama's election. Some of his speeches were printed there, and as I read what Obama had to say about race, I cried and asked myself what I was doing in Brazil when I could be working on Mark Winston Griffith's city council campaign or doing something in New Orleans. Still, for now I am where I am, and there is value in this, too. In fact, an acquaintance of mine in Rio, who started an organization called Catalytic Communities, offered me the possibility of doing some video and photography work in exchange for room and board in a hostel, so I'm going to do that.
From Vitoria, I traveled to a small town on the coast called Itacare'. Sometime during the trip, I got super sick, and I spent the 13-hour ride throwing up in the bus' bathroom. No fun. It took some time to recover, but I did, and then moved on to Salvador, finally. The three days that I spent there didn't feel like enough, so I may just have to go back at some point.
On Thursday, a Frenchwoman, Lena, and I spent the day together. Most of it on the beach. At sunset, I was swimming, and there was a burst of applause and cheers from the shore. The people were cheering for the sunset, as Salvador is perhaps the only place in Brazil where it looks like the sun sets over the ocean.
My Mom has arrived from the US for 10 days, so after she goes back, I'll start working with Cat Comm.