How difficult is to watch a game

Scene 1: Amsterdam, September 2005

We are watching the final of the "European Basketball Cup" at the big-screen of a luxurious sports cafe in Amsterdam. The place is full of people (mainly Greeks) who consume several beers during the game. A big-guy, probably the bar-manager, was walking nervously around, checking that everything runs smoothly with all those crazy Greeks. At a certain time my beer is over, he immediately spots my empty glass and asks for a new order. I kindly explain him that I don´t want to drink more and he "kindly" kicks-me out of the bar. You could only stay in the bar if you would consume...
I did order another beer, which I drunk as slowly as possible (only to see the end of the game) and never went back...

Scene 2: Salvador de Bahia, June 2006

This morning we are walking with Bessy at the waterfront of Barra (a sea-side suburb of Salvador) looking for a nice place to watch the game of Brasil against Ghana. In a very narrow alley we spot 2 guys setting some plastic chairs in front of a window, where a small TV was standing on top of a box of beers. Before we ask, they offered us the best seats right in front of the TV. In less than 5 minutes the place was full of old and young people, men and women, all dressed up in green and yellow and equiped with all necessary tools: whistles, fireworks, guns etc. The game started and the beers too. They offered us at once. We couldn´t help but accept and return the offer. As Brasil was scoring goals, more beers were coming on the table (it was only 12:00), fishrmen coming out of the water, were offering fresh fish and sea-food for everyone. The cafe-owner was happy to prepare them, to serve everyone, he was even happy when we ordered lunch from a nearby reastaurant and had it served at his restaurant! Even in the end, when we asked for fresh juice -since he didn´t have any- he was happy to go to a nearby cafe, order and bring 2 juices for us.
Brasil won the game, but probably most of the people around us, only realised it when the game was over. The reason is that simply noone cared about the goals of Ronaldo, or the passes of Ronaldinho. Everybody was happy to be there, tease their friends, shout, lough, invite the passers-by to sit with them, celebrate and escape for 90 minutes from the reality.

How simple things can be...

Salvador de Bahia

Salvador de Bahia is the 3rd largest city of Brasil. It consists of a historic centre (Pelourinho) and several suburbs where the majority of its 2,5 million people live.

Salvador lies in the middle of a peninsula, therefore most of the city is by the beach. There you get extremelly nice views of the ocean, colorful sunsets, relaxing swimming and beach bars with refreshing juices (sucos de maracuja, abacaxi, manga, caju, cacau, coco, morango, laranja etc.).

In Pelourinho, from Friday to Saturday we were lucky to follow "As festas de Sao Joao", which is -next to the carnival- the most important celebration throughout the year.

Dancing groups (quadrilhas) performing all around the city. Music scenes with open air concerts of all kinds of music (forro, axe, arrocha, pagode, samba, afro-bloco) were everywhere. Special performances for children and older people were also planned. We also tried traditional food and pastries, typical cachaca from the Bahian region, watched capoeira and danced in the rythms of African drums.

Above that, Saturday night we followed, outside Salvador, a Candomble ritual.
Candomble is a ceremony part of the Afro-Brasilian culture of Bahia.
The celebration starts with an animal sacrifice to attract the attention of the "orixas" the African gods. The drummers play throughout the ceremony, only women are dancing in African rythms until they enter a trance, the goal of the ceremony. When a dancer enters a trance, means that has received the spirit of the "orixa", she retreats and the next one comes on stage.

It could take hundreds of lines to describe the experience and the feelings during this ceremony, but probably this is not the space to express everything.

However, the point is that Salvadoris not only, sea, sun, capoeira, music, dances, nice food and cultures.

Salvador is a very extensive city and if you don´t have a car you can hardly visit a small part of it. And of course most of the people here don´t own a car, therefore they have to spent long days in the packed buses to go to work or do their shopping.

Salvador is a city where street children are abundant. You see them everywhere, they beg for some centavos in Pelourinho, they polish shoes outside commercial centres, the sell sleeping chairs at the beach, they sell some corn to make their living, they steal, they form street-gangs, they kill, they get killed...

Salvador is a dangerous city, people have bars at their windows even at the 10th floor of buildings, they have big walls around their houses, armed guards at the entrance of the "condominios", they never stop at traffic lights after the sun is set, they never open their car-windows, they never go to isolated places alone, when they go to the beach they cannot enter the sea because their staff will be stolen, they never feel secure any time of the day, at any place they are....

Salavdor is a city that develops. A new metro is being built here deslocating people from their places, enormous commercial centres are inaugurated every year, taking customers from street markets to big-brands and empoverishing even more the small retailers.

The route is the same for all people here. From the countryside, to the city and there in the favelas.

Tomorrow morning is the World Cup game between Brasil and Ghana. Most of Brasilians will watch the game at the television even at the most far away places of the country. The goals of well-paid Ronaldo and Ronaldinho will bring them for 90 min in a magic world. When the game is over they will have to go back to the misery of everyday life.

Good luck...

60 minutes of love

21/6/2006, Today my father turned 60 and I turned 30.

After so many years, there are many things I needed to tell him.
Therefore I made a video about his life: "60 minutes of love"...

It was not the video itself, but the process of making it that counted for me...
So many images, words, thoughts, feelings, a man's life in front of my eyes!!!
It was a gift to myself, a rewarding experience, a lesson of life....

By making it, I wished I could offer him a fraction of the love I have received...
I just realised this is not possible... but still a good effort :):)

Anyway ...in 1 hour I am flying to Brasil, I hope I can feed in this blog with nice themes from the celebrations of this weekend in Salvador de Bahia...

Ate logo....

Under the tree

Today I called Bessy, her phone rang, she picked it up...

Guess why... she was under THE tree, the only spot in "Menino Jesus" where there is a mobile network (see previous post).

She was not alone there, about 15-20 children were playing around her. The same morning, Bessy had attended their class, talked and played with them...

School is her home, she spents most of her day there and the nights as well (truth, they sleep at the ground of the school)...

Together with the University students they organise activities for the community, for examlpe last night they showed the movie "Motorcycle Diaries".
However, living conditons are harsh... No fresh water, electricity is scarce and hygienic is an unknown word...

But Bessy is alive and kicking, if only there weren't so many mosquitos!!!

Menino Jesus

Today, Bessy is off to "Menino Jesus", an "assentamento" about 4 hours from Salvador.


She arrived there this morning, together with a team of students, driving in a University mini-bus, through a muddy but extremely beautiful route in the tropical forest of Bahia.

The "assentamento" hosts about 200 families, Bessy will stay with one of them, offering house-labour in return.
She will be following classes at school every morning from 7:00 to 12:00, then holding interviews with families and teachers and of course contributing to the day-to-day activities of the community.

Next Friday she is heading back to Salvador.
Communication is not very easy, though her mobile phone has a very weak network exclusively under THE tree, which stands outside THE school of the community :):)

You can give it a try and if she happens to be around (the tree) she will be delighted to answer your call :):)

World Cup kick-off

Only 5 minutes before the kick-off of the 2006 World-Cup, I received the following message from Bessy:

"Brasil is totally into the World Cup rythm!

Banks have changed the working schedule of the employees for the days Brasil is playing, they close at 14:30.
All the shops have green and yellow flags hunging on the walls, same goes for agencies and public sector like the Post Office for example...
TV is the best, all journalists are already in Germany for days and we know what happens there every single minute!

Everybody expects Brasil to win of course, this is the religion here, football...Viva Brasillll!!!!"

The Basilian pace...

...is so different from the one of Bessy.

In Brasil everything is moving slowly, nothing is definite, people are reluctant to make long-term appointments and you always should expect the unexpected (see transportation strike in previous post).

One should conclude that this is NOT the country for Bessy to be...here, I quote some of her recent words:

"...I am trying to get people for my interviews, I am calling, e-mailing, but everything moves so slowly, que posso fazer?"

"...I am usually well organised, but now I didn't think that if I went today to the assentamentos I wouldn't be able to make any interviews during the weekend..."

"...Anyway, I will go next week, but still due to the World Cup I doubt if anything will be moving..."

"...I became a Brasilian sooner than expected..."

Fotooooos...

No news good news

Not much going on in the weekend...
Bessy had some rainy days in Salvador but still could experience for first time some palm-tree beaches and wavy seas. Spending a lot of time with her flat-mates and experiencing some Greek cooking...
Strike is still on, therefore no interviews planned before coming Thursday...

Moving

While Bessy was moving to a posh appartment next to the beach, some thousand kilometers to the east, I was also moving "the Dutch way" out of our lovely room to ...nowhere!!!