Bomb Test

The wall in the background, divides the slum Jardim Elivana and separates the housing project, while protecting private land from being occupied. Three weeks ago, the body of a twenty-year old was found along this wall. Almost precisely where the two other children are walking along. Someone had tied a bomb around his waist and then blown him up. No one, really seems sure why they killed him in this manner, what they do know is that this boy was up to no good and got what was coming to him. Revenge? Justice? Murder? This is the life in the periphery. It used to be a lot worse I was told.

Out here it's best to keep the police out of it. Out here the laws are made at home.

The Silent Bride

I walked into a wedding on the eastern periphery of São Paulo in Guianazes. Odd? A white mute man and his black mute wife communicated in sign language amongst their guests.

Here in Brazil, people don't make a big deal about race. Interrelations are as common as the sun. It's much more about class. Who you are.

She was a funny girl.
Good Luck.

King of Sampa

Alemão is homeless, over sixty years old and from what I can tell quite possibly schizophrenic. He lives under a tree on a overpass in an upper class neighborhood.

On every ocassion that I have visited him he talks to me of multi million robbery, fraud, extorsion, murder and rape that ocurred twenty years ago. In this crime, an American was killed. As far as I can understand this American, named David, got involved with a woman who betrayed him because she was actually the lover of a man in the Comando Vermelho criminal organization. Somewhere along the story the man was killed, for his money and the woman's daughter was also raped in the process. Somewhere else along the line a transvestite appears, as usual?

Alemão also says, the criminals are waiting for him to die so that his mother will inherit the loot, located in his bank account which he cannot access because he lacks proper ID but is to his mother;s name. So the criminals are actually after his mother. How old would she be now?

He may be mentally ill, but it fascinates me every time I visit him to hear this story and try to make sense of the pieces he offers me in bits. His story actually never changes which makes me ever more curious. Yet, what really fascinates me his will and power to survive, feed his dog and apparently look quite happy.

On the first photograph above he was describing to me a king that had lost his clothes and tried to sell them to him as authentic.

Tenode Pora

Barely known to most of the nearly 20 million residents living in São Paulo, are the three Guarani Indian villages, two of them federal reserves, in the extreme south of the city. Located in the metropolitan area, the largest village known as Tenode Pora, meaning Beautiful Village in Guarani, is compromised of over 800 Indians.











This village, nearly ten years ago, was suffering from perdition mixed with a loss of identity and a victim of alcoholism. Today, with a new Caçique (Chief) Timoteo Wera Poty, the village and its inhabitants are recovering their ancestral dignity and reviving a living culture.

However, like 95% of the city, it also suffers from the effects of mass urbanization. Over the last fifteen years, the tiny 26 hectares granted to the Guarani are threatened by the urbanization slowly surrounding its natural realm. Anything from shantytowns to illegal settlements cause harm to the the reservation. Today ironically, urban planning has arrived from the inside, as a major habitat contstruction plan was practically imposed on the Indians to avoid a continuous subsidy of their natural way of life.

City Hall over the last four years erected a plan to build brick homes with concrete floor for the Guaranis. Nothing wrong with brick homes, but for people who are fighting a way of life and livelihood, concrete floors are cold and unnatural to the earth floors they prefer. The next three blog installments will speak of the importance of understanding the way of life these Indians have held for hundreds of years and why we still have a lot to learn from them in the XXI century.

Looking For A Battle

815 AM. Last stop in the Jardim Pantanal. Will not be back until October.

10 Million Daily Users

It's 6:15 AM. The trains have been coming in from the periphery since 430 AM. They are packed. The Subway trains to get here to leave the city at 530 AM was packed too. It's at least a 45 min train ride in or out from the station.

Castles

Eight o'clock in the morning. Northern of Sao Paulo, Brasilandia to be exact. Inside the Jardim Elisa Maria neighborhood, a soft fog rolls through the neighborhood. A river, a very polluted one, runs at the bottom of the valley/ A sort of hidden "favela" it is.

These houses reminded me of ancient ruins in the deserts of Morocco. Like homes coming out of the mountain. Caves almost. Will these houses remain 200 years from now? 500? Will someone dig them up or will the city actaully urbanize these areas properly someday? I doubt it.

Labor Day Countdown

May First, Labor Day. A date marked by struggle, but often nowadays a date marked by the innocence of humanity attempting to discover human rights. We have so few human rights that sometimes I believe we don´t have any at all.

It´s almost three in the afternoon and I´ve returned to the MTST (Movement for the Roofless Workers) camp Joao Candido. They have been out all morning marching downtown for their rights. The leaders compromised of students, militants, lawyers and vast army of popular supporters have united behind the movement to fight a pending eviction threat for Monday, May 7th. The mood in the camp was nothing but surprising. They are in their fighting mode and expecting to win a settlement that will at least drive them from where they are now to another land.

At the uppermost part of the camp, lies section 33. The last area of a total of 33. A group of children and their mother are playing soccer across one of the three they have established. Football may be a birthright in Brazil, but here each field is the only center of entertainment and a form of unison for the movement´s cause. Joao Rodriguez de Jesus, 55 years old, missing all his from teeth and originally from Bahia, is watching alongside three other elder sitting on a log. Leliel, only five years old and with the enthusiasm of gazelle. danced around Joao begging for attention. She also begged to be snapped by the camera. She kept calling out to him, ¨Tio, Tio¨(meaning uncle in Portuguese, but commonly used to refer to an elder friend). I asked to take their portrait and while doing so, tears rolled down Joao´s face. His eyes were small and his face showed the hardships of the land. At first I thought his eyes were ill and that the incessant tears were simply washing out his eyes from some malday. I asked him what was wrong with his eyes. Nothing he told me. They cry because of her. Joao explained to me that Leliel´s father was in jail and still to see a child so happy and full of life on this camp, struggling for a home, made him cry when she called out to him as ¨Tio¨. Joao has lost all hiss family..

The next morning the camp began gathering at its base, preparing for another march to Itapecerica´s city hall. One more of many efforts to come, to pressure the mayor into finding them a solution. Maria Bonita, in her mid 50´s, she would not confess her age, was leading section 12. Her hat was a true representative of the land, the people and their struggle. Yet it was her hard cold eyes and their determination that really demanded a portrait.