And here's Argentina:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mepet84/Argentina?authkey=Gv1sRgCK7O3Kff14XCTQ

I know, I know, it's been a long time, but here are some pictures from Brazil:

http://picasaweb.google.com/mepet84/Brasil?authkey=Gv1sRgCIrR7qWtp_3zEw

São João and Copa

Soccer World Championship. Well I don't really like to write about it anymore. Brazil's out... But this picture was taken during the first match against Northern Korea. The atmosphere was quite tense but it was a nice afternoon party. we had a lot of musical instruments to keep the slow game exciting. Nearly every game I watched in a different place, but it was always a reason to party. Well the games at 11 in the morning were really early. And as far as I remember I always had put my alarm. The 'copa' is parallel to a big folk festival here in the state, so it meant double partying for everyone. Until the final game against the Netherlands. I won't talk about it anymore. When Argentina lost against Germany, every goal made by Argentina was accompanied with cheers nearly as loud as Brazil would have made a goal. Brazilians hate the Argentinean team and especially Maradona. It's a really profound aversion.

The other big event last month was São João. It's a traditional holiday which lasts here the whole month. It's about saints and that stuff. There's special food which is served during that time and lot of Forro is played and danced. an example for the traditional Forro is here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V0wzAnWh-vk. but nowadays the parties are dominated by a 'modern' Forro which is a bit more animated, but in term of lyrics and choreography incredibly sexualized. I think this clip gives a quite good impression: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PXXc1pKOPZ0 . The cool kids for sure, don't like that music. I also think the music is much better to bear up against with some drinks...

So I was for 5 days in the interior, 5 hours from the capital in the Sertão, a very dry area, which is the poorest of all places in Brazil, because it's so hard to grow anything here or alternatively people suffer from hard rainfalls but in general desertification is pretty advanced. The town I went to Patos, is not just the hometown from my friend Andrea, but also home to one of the most intense celebrations of this holiday. The whole state got a three day holiday just for the celebrations and nearly everybody left to visit family and friends in the countryside. So in Patos it was basically 5 days of non-stop-partying. Andrea has 6 brothers and sisters plus millions of cousins, aunts and uncles. So the house was pretty full and it was quite animated. so far my cultural studies.
On the photo above is Andreas brother Cristiano who also lives here in João Pessoa and also became a good friend of mine.

This picture shows the quadrilha dance. The basic idea is similar to the one of the European dance, but here it's danced to, I think it's also Forro, but a bit faster. I took this picture during a shooting by the TV Channel Andrea's other brother is working for. That's why the pairs are especially dressed up. It looks somehow like this: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-j0ccJv0W8c .

This was the last day in Patos, when we were on our way to the party, which always a show by some local celebrities. From right to left Diovanne, Andrea's brother, me, Andrea and Danilo who's a friend of Diovanne but also became a good friend of mine.

Just to proof that I'm not constantly partying this picture. As I've written before, I rallied with the Movement for Unemployed Workers (MTD) in a favela to motivate people to stand up for their rights and ask for more benefits from the municipality for unemployed people. apart from that we painted numbers on the houses, because in this community people don't receive their mail yet. Houses are more or less build, where there was space and no house is registered, that's why we gave numbers to houses and registered them, at the post office.

So we got some people together and went to the mayor. It was not easy to get in even if we had an appointment to talk about the claims. In the end when it started to rain, they would us finally let in. One person said that the only reason for that would be because the now-mayor is running for becoming governor in the elections this fall... Well, in the end we were let in and even got our cause. The success was that the families who participated got a basic food basket and the municipality offered cheap credits for capacity building courses for people to get a better qualification for the job market.
My personal resume of this activity is that it is an important thing to rally for the cause of unemployed workers, because Brazil has a lot of especially unemployed low- and unskilled people who are mostly absorbed by the informal sector, which doesn't provide any social securities.
But, not just because I'm working with solidarity economy right now, but as I'm in general a big fan of empowerment, I have to call this action a failure. As any political institution the MTD also has some very skilled leaders. Those put the idea in the people's head and didn't leave any space for own ideas. Those are the one's leading the discussion and creating the ideas. When I was asked what I was thinking about the meeting we had, with the people from the community and I mentioned the point of the lack of participation, the only answer I got was: "Sure, but the people aren't ready yet for participation" I think a lot of people from USAID, SIDA, CIDA, GTZ etc. would use exactly the same words. And that's why most of the development projects around suck and don't work. I wonder, how can you be ready for participation, to stand in for your own interests? The idea of empowerment is providing help to find your own will, not create the will for someone else.

This is yet another image of João Pessoa. It’s a very typical view on a Brazilian town. Somehow Brazilians love uncharacteristical architecture in they’re towns. These nice high buildings give, to the one’t that can afford to live in thos, an impression of additional safety. All the green around is very typically João Pessoa, as I’ve already written, the second greenest town worldwide. Behind the buildings is the city beach.

I’m sorry if I’m creating any hard feelings, whe I upload even more pictures of beaches and nice landscapes. But I happened to be there. Last weekend I actually planned to go to a meeting of the MST, the landless movement, in a neighbouring town. The guy though, with whom I was supposed to go there on Saturday morning, partyed a little hard on Friday and wasn’t feeling like travelling anymore. So I had to come up with a backup plan. My roomie, one of his friends and me went to a beach upstate.

Music is everything: This was during a governmental conference on regional/local development. The conference opening started with a marching band playing the national anthem followed by the one from the state of Paraíba, which was by the way the coolest anthem I’ve evere heard. Unfortunately the versions on you tube aren’t that cool like the one from that marching band. But check this version of the national anthem: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0_qcSl-z8OM&feature=related. You get a little impression of the rich musical culture here. If you want some recomendations about music, just get in touch with me, I’ll pass it on.

Ok, about the conference; it wasn’t that exciting. I was on another one the week before, which was much more interesting.

If you ever wondered, yes I turn into a vampire at night. I love the night shootings of my camera. The reason for this picture. This picture was taken close to the student union. Shortly after I arrived the student union was elected. Most of the people I hang out with are from the student movement (the leftis coalition). So I got some insights how student politics in Brazil work. Here in at the UFPB (Federal University of Paraíba) it’s not that far from real politics. The right wing coalitions uses to bash the left wing students, ballot boxes are getting stolen and people (try to) fraud the votes. From an outside perspectives kind of funny, but the students have quiet a big influence on the general politics of the university (much more than they have for instance in Sweden or most states in Germany). In the end, at this elections, the left coalition won. If I wanted I could attend student union meeting every night.

Futebol American: American (Beach) Football. I was meeting with a friend at the beach last weekend. While I was waiting I could watch this game. I thought it was kinda funny, how they adapted this oh-so-American tradition and turned it into a beach game. My portugese teacher though, was telling me today that mostly rich kids play it, as soccer is to much an “underclass” sport…

Here they come; the underclass. Last weekend I was at meeting from the landless workers movement MST. Actually it was from the subsection the movement of the unemployed workers MTD. This week they do some rallies through the poorer neighborhoods (not favelas, they don’t exist here, but slum gets close to the description). The aim is to mobilize the unemployed citizens to fight in the municipal for more benefits for unemployed workers. I’ll take pictures and will tell about the result soon.

This is the view on such a neighborhood. I was there last week to visit another group of Solidarity Economy. These communities were never planned, people just started to build houses. In general they don’t have any water treatment and the waste water just runs down the roads. Often in these communities people don’t pay for energy, they just connect to the closest energy cable.