Music at Lake Lemon

An old-time family jam on Arkansas Traveler....Paul Shriver plays the harmonica, while Dave Weaver plays guitar, along with David Meek on clawhammer banjo, and Lesley Jo Weaver Meek on bones.









Paul Shriver plays the "limber jack" while Dave Weaver plays guitar, along with David Meek on clawhammer banjo, and Lesley Jo Weaver Meek on bones.

LOST!!!!

(For those of you who haven't been dutifully {obsessively} watching the show, I'll try to keep the ridiculous similarities to a minimum)

Ok, I think I FOUND the island.....seriously....ok, first, it's called Ilha Grande, and no, it's not located in the Pacific, but off the coast of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil (sneaky, I know)....

Well, I thought you wouldn't believe me so I've included some photos to prove it (in addition to the top one, I saw all of the survivors of that Oceanic flight too!)

So here's a photo from the dock upon arriving on Ilha Grande (luckily, my plane didn't crash, and I didn't have to go through some strange time-travel portal in the Moroccan desert....I know now you really want to watch the show right?)




Ok, enough Lost nonsense, I was on Ilha Grande for a little over two days. Ilha Grande is exactly what the name denotes- Big Island. It really is huge, i don't know how huge but really big. It has a 106 beaches, and is basically all mountains and native Atlantic rainforest. It has a strange history, which is why there is only one fairly small town and lots of remaining native rainforest. First it was the site of a prison, then a leper's colony, then another prison, then a dharma initiative (just through that it for the Lost fans). It's a great place to take a vacation because there are something like 16 trails crisscrossing the island, some of them essentially unpaved roads, others near vertical root-grabbing treks, that take one all over the island to the various beaches and mts. And that's just what one can do on their own, most of the people it seems avail themselves of the tour boats going out to visit the beaches and go snorkeling.

I'm more of the explore-it-on-your-own-type, so on the first day I went on a great, albeit long hike to a series of beaches, traversing some amazing rainforest....just like in LOST!



the trail was built of stones by prisoners from one of the former prisons...beautiful, but not fun i imagine....





I had planned ahead, and stuffed my hammock in the bag, so when I got there...you got it, hammock time!




It was amazin how different the beaches I came to were. There was the sliver of beach that one can see in the above hammock photo, and then this great long beach at Dos Rios...



Dos Rios (two rivers) is aptly named for the two rivers that cut through the beach. One of the rivers is particularly amazing, the river itself is clear,and then when the tide comes in you can see the mixing of the salt and fresh water.



On the next day I decided to go on a different type of excursion, and so set out to climb Pico do Papagaio, pictured here from town above the church.




Unfortunately, this photo was taken the day before when it was relatively sunny, on this day it was one of those days where I could just here my parents saying...I think I see blue sky over there...but the fog just added to the ambience, as I walked among the giant tree covered boulders...



I came across some really interesting little things...such as these crawling plants (this photo doesn't capture the scale, but they're going about 30 feet up the cliff)



and a close up...



some strange cacti beneath the parrot's beak...




and what I think is a Jack fruit tree....



and then...I ran into a an Australian tourist coming up the mountain who I had helped buy a bus ticket in Sao Paolo a week before, he greeted me with a "Brother, I knew we'd meet again" (which is basically what Desmond said to Jack in the football stadium)...and that's when I knew I was FOUND (horrible pun, I know).

Paraty

Well, as I indicated in a previous post I was a little dissappointed by Paraty; true it does have a little localized colonial charm, like New Castle, but it is so heavily touristy, not surprisingly that it didn't leave a great impression with me. I would like to return sometime though, on either a Wednesday or Saturday, as they have an apparently amazing puppet theater that gives performances only on these nights...so who knows, maybe a return to Paraty is in the picture? Well, here are some shots of what stood out in my mind.








and what left the most lasting impression....

Well, I'm now in Paraty (no not, Party, but Paraty). I'd have to say it is a great dissapointment, after all I've heard, but I guess when you compare any touristy city to an MST settlement, where in just 5 days you've made very good friends, it's bound to pale by comparison. So before I show off Paraty's charm, a handful of parting shots from the 25th of March school, and the Conquista and Vitoria settlement.

The first is a shot of from left to right, your's truly, Matheus, Ana Flavia, Ana Claudia, Veronica, and Naira. Ana Flavia and Ana Claudia are Matheus and Naira's daughters (hope on school holidays) and so it was a full and happy house. In my time staying with Matheus and family we had some truly wonderful family meals. Not just the quality of the cuisine, for Matheus is one who absolutely relishes in the culinary arts, but in the closeness within the family, and how welcome they made me, whether at the inside dinner table...






or the outside dinner table... (I like this picture especially because it captures something linguistically that is quintessentially Brazilian-the unimicable ability to talk with one's hands- absolutely unbelievable, especially the strange and unreproducable finger snapping they do for emphasis)





or around the BBQ pit! BBQ, or as it is known in Brasil, Churrasco, is a tradition that makes the American grilling of burgers look like child's play. The meal we had with Jaimie and his family (Jaimie and his son Adriel (sp?) are pictured here). I don't know the quantity of pig that was grilled over the embers that cold morning, but I know that I was absolutely catatonic after the thanksgiving-like spread that we had for a late lunch (complete with Pancakes rolled over and filled with seasoned ground beef, and local pine nut "Farofa" (like stuffing) not to mention the innumerable gourds of mate (pronounced mat-ay) that is a traditional gaucho (cowboy) drink in South America (and one can see Matheus drinking).





Plenty of wonderful wonderful moments, such as the post-feast catatonic state in which I found myself playing mandolin on the veranda in the sun (one can only appreciate the pleasure of this after several days of cold rain) while Naira and Jaimie's wife (?) knitted up a storm.




It was very interesting to visit Jaimie's farm; no, not just because of my initiation into the art of southern Brazilian churrasco (mind you I'm a veteran of the northern Brazilian variety-see blog posts of several moons ago), but also to tour Jaimie's land, as he has been settled here for 25 years now. What was especially interesting for me to see was the forms that "agroecology" takes: for example, Jaimie found that one of the country's largest juice processors was located nearby, and was able to make use of refuse.....



by feeding the orange rinds that the plant had left after squeezing to his cows! Now that's what I call recycling!





and as always a parting shot. Now this is what I call a realistic picture...no it's not a picture of the landscape that hangs in their kitchen, but rather a look through the giant swinging shutter window into the "backyard" where Matheus has an ambitious mandala project planned....to learn more about it




you'll need to come to the 25th of March school, and meet a man who is proud of his dirt...and proud he should be, but not just of his dirt, but of the school that he and Naira have transformed, as well as the lives of students, such as Adriel (Jaimie's son-from the BBQ photo), who have come back to teach at the school after getting a university degree in agroecology ...now THAT is what I call recycling at it's best.

An International Show! and Extravaganza!

So when you're the gringo in a small community you're basically like a strange animal that has just arrived to the zoo...no, not quite like a cute baby panda...more like an armadillo with two heads....that speaks a strange language....

And so this strange armadillo got asked to give a concert at a graduation ceremony/party for the school.

And here are some photos from the ïnternational extravaganza.....can't you just hear the announcer's voice over the loudspeaker now?

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!