Bem Vindo da Escola 25 de Marco

Greeting from the 25th of March school located between the MST settlements "Conquista" e "Vitoria"; as you might ascertain, MST schools, settlements, and encampments are all named according to either important dates (such as the 25th of March, the day when the settler's first received the land) or names like "Conquest" and "Victory"; the cultural geographers in the group would like to note that such names, and the processes through which they are institutionalized and inscribed, are forms of toponymic territoriality (now there's some academic jargon for you!) or in other words using place names to form connections between people and specific landmarks and landscapes....now you done been edumacated!

So here are a few photos from my time here at the school. It's unlike the 17th of April settlement that I was at previously in the north, which is an agrovilla, basically like a centralized village. This is more spread out, there is no real village per-se, rather each house is seperated by about 15 hectares, and the school is between two settlements. The school itself is very different from the one I was at up north. By different I mean not only the physical structure of the buildings, which you will see in the next photos, but the pedagogy, and educational identity are very different as well. As the photos might show, there is a much stronger educational identity related to the movement itself here than in the north. Additionally, the formal agroecology curricula is much stronger here than in the north. This is what I was expecting, but is very interesting to see how it is manifested and think about the implications for cultural identity, agricultural practices, and formal and informal processes of landscape change.


SO the first picture is on the way to the school. Matheus, the director who wears innumerable hats here, picked me up after I took an overnight bus to the state of Santa Catarina. We stopped the car to look at the school from the top of the hill, where Matheus proudly told me that the land of the school, 34 hectares had more native forest than any of the surrounding land....a trend?




As I mentioned, the physical structure of the school here evidences the political identity of the movement, much stronger than the relatively blank walls of the school up north. This mosaic and the mural that follows are the product of a collaboration between Dan, Manoela, and the school a number of years ago (they are my connection to this particular school). There work with the students is amazing,and continues to shine on.










As these images show...it's always MST time at this school (I know a horrible pun...)




Now in terms of actual pedagogy, and its effects, we see images like these: students taking seeds home from the school's stockpile. The school works on an interesting block system, the students spend 45 days living at the school, and then about the same period of time working at home, putting the lessons learned in the ground...literally, they then return and continue the process.



and other examples, such as this agricultural mandala that is part of the school's teaching garden, very agroecology, very different than the kind of educational landscape I witnessed previously.



and to end with a few funny pictures: It's been raining and very very cold here (in the 40s probably at night)considering the houses are basically plywood without insulation or heating...a good warm drink is much welcomed. Here is a photo of Matheus stirring the witches brew in a giant pot...



and then having an assistant light it on fire to burn off the alcohol!!!



and a parting shot of the seedlings in the nursery: these are a native species of pine that is very beautiful when it grows old....very elegant...another step in the transformation of this cultural landscape.





ok, and a last photo. This is a picture taken from within one of the classrooms. The rough translation is "We are the multiplication of struggles; like the ground multiplies planted grain, we are planting and harvesting, we are a ray of hope"

Funny things

Ok last quick posting before I head down to Santa Catarina (where I'll be visiting another MST settlement for 4 days, before heading to the beach for a week of really difficult research on sun tanning and 16th century colonial architecture)

So I often joke with people that I might make a better living dropping out of school and starting a company translating ads for in country companies, i.e. in India the ridiculous ads one sees that don't make any sense when translated into english....

but then I see this one which makes me wonder....




just what is "Diving Baptism", and why wasn't it part of my religious education?

Oh those Unitarians, no good under water!

The Brazilian Chameleon

So, I came from the Amazon, where it was sweltering (although not as hot as in India) to the south of Brazil, where it's in the 50's, and tonight I head farther south, where the temp has been dipping into the freezing digits....

So, with only shorts and short-sleeve shirts I need to do some retrofitting...

Now, I had been feeling like I stood out a little, but I wasn't about to go Native, as I think Brazilian clothing styles are absolutely atrocious (I imagine the Natives think the same of my zip on pant legs...oh well)

And then a fellow hosteler was getting rid of half his wardrobe in front of me...and I scored this marvelous gem!



Now, I was not going to go whole hog and buy the pants to match it, which would have been jeans with zippers and doo dads in strange places, acid washed, and with strange non-sensical english words scralled on them....

So instead, i headed down to the equivalent of China town....

and retrofitted myself again....





For US$ 20, not bad for jeans (which lack all of the culturally-appropriate acouterments, sorry) and a long-sleeve button down, now who looks legitimate.....

except for that stuff on my face...no it's not dirt, i didn't fall. I just decided it was a lot easier to trim my "neard" (neck beard) every once in a while, and embrace the beard than actually shave proper style. Whether I come back with said facial hair will depend on the number of electronic requests I get, and who they're coming from!

Clean as newly fallen snow...

or the beautiful white seats of a cadillac (google images has everything)...

(and it only took SIX HOURS of me pacing frantically, drinking too much coffee, and playing the mandolin obsessively, while the cleaner cleaned to find out that my data was clean was well)

and for US$80 (which I'm not sure, but I have a feeling is a pretty good deal for having a technician come to you and work for six hours, try getting that in the States), I'm now a happy camper.

The Cleaner

So let~s play the `have you seen that movie game`:

Anyone seen Resevoir Dogs?

Pretty violent flick....anyone remember the cleaner scene?

Well, for those of you who turned the movie off, what happens is basically as follows. An incident occurs in which the protagonists blow someones brains out all over the inside of the fancy white leather car and they need to get the situation (as well as the car) cleaned...in a hurry. Harvey Keitel (the cleaner) is called in and arrives in a tuxedo to make the situation go away.

Now, you are probably wondering what situation I´m in that warrants starting off a story with this cinematic analogy.

Well here it is:

So two days ago I opened an email message from a researcher here in Brazil, and downloaded a document he sent me (which I assumed was virus-free) ((You can probably see where this is going...)

After downloading the document all of these ads started popping up on my computer...then several minutes later the computer started acting funnier, no not like tellnig jokes, but like not working....I shut it down....

and it wouldn~t restart....

Ok, freaking out: all of my summer research. Not really thoroughly backed up, a draw back of not having a cd/dvd burner in the computer, is that i only have 2gb backed up of the important stuff on a thumb drive, and some stuff in the cloud storage online (yes, various lessons being learned here)

So freaking out, I ask the people at the hostel: And they make the call.

And arrives Marcos, in a very nice suit (a tuxedo might be innappropriate).

He~s the cleaner. And three hours later he~s still cleaning. Apparently this was a very nasty virus and was trying to destroy my operating system.....Marcos seems to be of the qualifications of Harvey Keitel, so I have complete faith that he will be able to get my white leather cadillac back to its pristine white condition (minus the amazonian dirt that~s engrained in it)......

So lessons learned:

1. A spyware program is only as good as it is (i.e it can~t detect new viruses it doesn~t know about (according to Marcos)

2. You are the best spyware program there is (ie know what you~re opening, which unfortunately makes it difficult when you revert back to the law of the highway which is you~re only as safe as the least safest person on the road.....)

3. Back up, back up, back up

4. Know the number of a good cleaner

Back in SAMPA

So I'm not sure, but from what I can tell people actually do refer to Sao Paulo as SAMPA, as opposed to those flower children posers who refer to San Francisco as Sanfran. Well, regardless, I'm staying at the SAMPA hostel, which is located in the unbelievably large metropolis of Sao Paolo (18 million and counting in the metro region).

My "worst" fears of returning here in the dead of "winter" were luckily unfounded: it's not THAT cold (all the warnings I'd had were from Brazilians after all)....so I'm sitting in shorts (and a very smelly t-shirt that should just be burned at this point as no amount of washing seems to ameliorate its unfortunate condition) and it's 8 am in the low 60s...I know...frigid right?

Anyways, so I'm staying in a slightly different part of SAMPA this time, in a different hostel (as my favorite Oca hostel is under renovation, which is very very very sad). I have a very love-hate relationship with hostels. If it's a nice hostel (like the one in Belem or the Oca) it's great; for US $ 12-15 dollars you get a dorm bed, wifi, shower, bad tv, and breakfast (of marginal quality). But it's a "crap shoot" (pardon the expression) as it depends on how many annoying travelers are staying there at the moment, and how thick the hostels walls are...let's just say here in good old SAMPA there are many of the former and the latter is of as much substance as their travel itineraries.



So judging aside...ok judging not aside: this area of Sao Paulo I'm in is insane! It's like a mix between Sanfrancisco (the hills), Berkeley/North Hampton (the funky), Buckhead (the incredible opulence) and I don't know a few other things. It is sooooo far removed from the 17 de Abril settlement it's unbelievable. On one street I walked past a Russian, Morrocan, Indian, Japanese, several artisan pizza restaurants and microbrew pubs a buddhist meditation center and innumerable art galleries, even the grocery store (where I thought I might be able to afford something) was an upscale version of Whole Foods/Trader Joes where I couldn't even afford the bread...



oh well....now it's pouring and unlike the rain in the Amazon which was cathartic and cooling...this feels like that great rain in October at the beach when all you brought is shorts and a t-shirt thinking it would be warm...where's Rag-R-Rama when you need it?

and sorry, I couldn't help taking this picture, or posting it: But at a funky "toy"/art boutique store, which I have no idea what you would really call it....I saw this very strange and disturbing chatchka.....yes, you can get your very own miniature OB/GYN or proctologist action figure set....yes, now life is complete. No, I didn't get them (but I am taking orders...)

Life of the River: Parting Shots

On the way back from a day trip to the island of Cotijuba, at sunset I saw this person commuting....somewhere




While wandering along the docks at night I came across a passenger boat getting ready to do a different type of commute along the river.....holy moley! Can you imagine sleeping for 5 days (let alone what you'd be doing the rest of the time) on a deck with hundreds of people in hammocks slung this way and that across each other! Absolutely insane!




Fresh shrimp anyone?