Baby steps....

In my experience, "baby steps" are the perfect metaphor for fieldwork. Part of the reason is because you're learning (a lot from the culture(s) {both ethnic and organizational) of the area and issue to the language and so many other things) and you'll inevitably fall on your face and start crying...(will someone hand me a tissue?). However, also like baby steps, when someone isn't there to pick you up you have to do it for yourself, and that leads to a beaming smile, which is a sign of accomplishment and growth. Wow, that was incredibly cheesy and a ridiculous sentiment.

So my baby step for today: I had asked my contact within the MST if there was anything (supplies or what not) that I could bring with me to the settlement, as a sort of thank you/welcome gift. I was thinking rice, or oil, perhaps pencils and paper, but oh no...apparently their hot for radical American protest music, posters, signs or other forms of propaganda. Goes to show that functionality is in the eye of the beholder. Anyways, so i consulted the list of radical bookstores that's listed on Slingshot, and found that there is one in Sao Paolo. After determining how on earth to get there via the metro and foot, I strapped on my murse, that's code for man-purse (seen below) ((I went for the leather thinking I would fit in....I think that works better than the straw hat that I've jettisoned to under the bed...we'll save that for when I'm in the campo proper))



Anyways, murse strapped on, I took about an hour metro ride, then braved the streets of Sao Paolo only to find that this radical bookstore was either a)no longer in existence, b)closed, or c) planning something radical and couldn't be bothered to open the door {Those anarchists can't trust them...no structure}. So it looks like my future comrades in the north will have to do with some downloaded from the internet protest music. Luckily, I know where to look http://www.davidrovics.com/

So, feeling a little discouraged (Although I did actually find the place, which is always a small "baby step" {see there's a theme here}, I got back on the metro and headed back to the Osa hostel. One small rumination, a tangent, if you will, is that it is always interesting to compare cities. No, I'm not saying that Sao Paolo is objectively better than Atlanta, although it's public transport system certainly is, and well it's public art is as well (see the sculpture below from the metro)



and well, literature has beat out coke for a primary place in the Metro's "snack machines"



Yes, that's right, they sell books from vending machines at approximately a dollar a pop...anyone want to read up on MLK or perhaps Excel? Probably a cultural/political/material vestige of when Paulo Freire served as the Cities minister of education from 1987 to 1993 (and you thought this blog was just for shits and giggles, no you will get educated here!)

Of course, like any good story, today's blog entry will end on a good note (it has to by definition, right?). Upon returning to the Oca I played mandolin for nearly an hour and a half, oh no that is just the apertif, although the neighbors probably wished it was the dessert. No, the real upshot of the day was that I got an email response back from a networked query I had earlier sent out. A friend of mine, Sergio Bernardes, who is a doctoral student in UGA's Geography department, is Brazilian and has worked for a number of years with remote sensing applications (think fancy mapping from space). He provided me with the email contacts (and perhaps more importantly proof-read my Portuguese email!) of individuals working within EMBRAPA (Empresa Brasileira de Pesquisa Agropecuária) r/ , which is the equivalent of our....hmmm...maybe the USDA plus the EPA plus our USGS? Not quite sure, but it's a major Brazilian research arm of the government, and I've got a meeting with their research team for Monday (fingers crossed) in Belem, where we will be talking about potential areas for collaboration! Very exciting indeed. They are working on a project using remote sensing to monitor land change in the northeastern Amazon, wait as second...so am I! Anyways, so I'm really excited about this baby step and hope the meeting turns out well. If nothing else, you gotta crawl before you can walk, and you gotta fall before you can crawl. Someone hand me a bucket so I can vomit, I disgust myself....