Saying good bye – going home

All adventures have an end and I have eventually arrived at this one. I’m going home in the middle of the Easter holidays. I will have one part of Easter at each side of the ocean, departing on Friday night 6^th and arriving Saturday night 7^th. In Brazil they eat all kinds of fish and sea fruits during this time of year so this will be my good by meal, and in Sweden there will be eggs.

I have said good by to all my colleagues at my internship, managed through my last day, acquired an Internship Certificate and brought candy and flowers. I don’t like goodbyes… it is difficult and sad, even more when it is divided - in happiness for going back to a place I long for, and sadness of having to leave newfound friends so soon.

For some reason all ends seems to come to soon and some how at the most inconvenient moments. Just when you are starting too feel secure, at home, found your place. The funny thing is that it dos not matter if it is an end that comes two or six months after the beginning.

I miss home a lot, I miss knowing my territory, I miss being able to do things I cannot do here, I miss family and friends I even miss the climate, the landscape and everything ells about Sweden. I guess I have a very strong sense of home, and that’s a part of me.

Any way, I am happy to have lived through a very good and rich experience. I dove deep in to the Brazilian society, culture and every day life, deeper than I have done before, and even though it has been hard at times I leave now, feeling that I have learned a lot, not only about my subject but also about my self and what I am capable of.

I have also received a lot of appreciation and admiration from colleagues that I am now leaving - words that means a lot after having spent the last half year trying very hard, without any chance of knowing how many times a day I (the intern/the gringo) have been more of a burden than a help, said something stupid with my Scandinavian Portuguese accent, broken an unwritten cultural code… or what ever.

The final evaluation is that I have done very well and this is coming for someone strictly self-critical. But the final part is not over yet – coming months will be spent in front of the computer – finalizing my thesis – bringing some order in to it all – summing it all up in to words, analysis and conclusions.

Coming home will give me the strength to conclude it all. 

VII Environmental Education Forum and rumors for Rio+20

As I wrote in previous post - fortunately, before this- my last week in Brazil, the state of Bahia hosted one of the countries biggest and very important Environmentalist events - The VII Brazilian Forum of Environmental Education which also this time was a preparatory event for the upcoming Rio+20 in June.

I’m participated with the Environmental Secretariat, helping out at their information boot with mapping of socioeconomically experiences and projects in Bahia as well as the parallel encounter of the Green Libraries (Salas Verdes). Besides this I had the chance to participate in innumerous mini courses, lectures, panel discussions and cultural exhibitions. All on the theme that I will write my thesis on and on top of it all – free of charge.

The work with the Parallel encounter and the information boot took up a lot of time during the four days of the Forum but I had the chance to check out many of the stand and the research exhibition halls where researchers, organizations and students display resent field works and research findings. I also went to a seminar on Green Economy and accompanied the debate on Indigenous rights and solutions in the field.

The four days gave few moments to reflect - they where intense but in a good way. The energy from the 3000 people present mad the conference center in the outskirts of Salvador centrum vibrate – literarily. Strength and hope found a place in every participant to last for the next big and important encounter where it hopefully can amplify and reach to the most remote places on earth.

Let Rio+20 be an as participative, vibrating and creative event as this one and the world can move forward together.

You will die trying... or?

Had an interesting conversation with people wrestling to make some change in this city today. Went to se the Directory of Environmental Education in the Municipality of Salvador. 

The Municipality of Salvador has a baaad baaad reputation, I have understood this much during my months here. The municipality does nothing, the prefect is a thug and all money that ever circulated in the system has succumbed to corruption. This may be a very badly nuanced picture but I don’t think it is too far from the reality and the people I met today didn’t really alter it ether.

Of course many people in the municipality works a lot, they try to do a lot and they engage with body and soul, but with to little support from their elected leaders, their management. Money is inexistent for al municipal interventions that includes social transformation and people working in the area are proportionally too few – almost invisible. 

It isn’t strange if most people start going on autopilot, closes them selves to feelings of shame or responsibility, just happy they receive their salary each month. It is a subconscious act of self-defense because there is no better way to get worn out, or “walk in to the wall” as we say in Swedish, than to continue trying.

There is however people that continue trying - strong people, with visions not so easily shattered. Although I believe that their shell is warn down and their self esteem on the verge of shattering – because that’s what a corrupt system does with honest people.

The woman I talked to today started crying when I told her that she had been indicated by every one as the person leading the work of Environmental Education in the municipality. She had never thought people recognized here work, never understood here importance and recognition in the larger context.

Next week the VII Brazilian Forum for Environmental Education will be held here in Salvador. A huge event that will host I don’t know how many mini courses, lectures, panel discussions and cultural exhibitions. It will offer an opportunity for every one that struggles for social, ethical and environmental changes in this country to come together and strengthen each other and gain forces.

Looking forward to it! 

Sunflowers to trigger community initiatives in Nordeste Amaralina

Yesterday I went with the Environmental Education Team from SEMA to attend the “Social street market” in Nordeste Amaralina arranged by the project Pact for life. The Idear was that alla state secretaries that participate in the project in some way would contribute in some way with a stand in the street and promote their individual activities that way.

The Project Pact for life – in its extended form – is only in its beginning in this part of town. Nordestre Amaralina is like a city in the city. A huge neighborhood divided in to at least three districts. During the last 10 years it has been a highly problematic area where parts have been totally abandoned by public administration and it has been very dangerous for outsiders to enter. The grate majority of the neighborhoods inhabitants lives in poverty and suffers from social exclusion. Problems continues but with the state turning its gaze towards this – quite central but – forgotten part of town it is getting more and more integrated with the whole of society.

SEMA had arranged to distribute information about the secretariats activities-to-come in the neighborhood as well as basic environmental education, environmental ethics etc. By distributing small bags filled with sunflower seeds (all handmade by non other then ME) we where able to draw attention to our table. We had also brought a dozen seedlings of native Atlantic-forest trees to distribute and help plant.

With the help of a banner showing an incomplete sunflower we also colected contacts, experiences and ideas trough asking people to write on yellow leaves made out of paper to help complete the flower on the banner.

The day could be summed up as – apart from hot but windy – productive and fun!

Insha'Allah I'll get there...

With one school situated in the far away suburb of Salvador and another in a neighborhood municipality - interviews with people at the state university, in a favela in the city center, and yet other strange places to come in the following weeks - I’m trying my best to locate my self on the map of Salvador.

It is not the easiest task to travel with the community transportation in this town. The traffic situation is more than chaotic and if you don’t have a car, the only way to travel is by buss or taxi. During 15 years a central metro line that does not extend further than 6 kilometers have been under construction. According to media, the Metro is finally finished, although it won't start running until 2014 - the year when Brazil hosts the World Cup. I cant confirm it, but I have heard that the entire project have had higher expenses than the under-ocean-tunnel that was built between France and the United Kingdom…

During the last couple of years an increase in living standard among many of the cities lower middleclass have been evident – something that manifest it self especially in the increase in traffic. The roads don't support the amount of cars and busses and the traffic stays nearly paralyzed in certain parts of the city during most of the active time of the day. However, every one with the possibility to buy a car does it - it is considered insupportable to travel by buss (and some days, I assure you, it really is). Still, a majority obviously doesn’t have an option and the buss-stops and busses are always overcrowded.

The buss route is indicated with signs on in the front window of the buss as well as on the lateral, just beside the back door – the door where passengers enter. The sign is composed of a list of names for places or neighborhoods, which the buss passes. Most of the time it is not sufficient to know what name you should look for on the list though. Since there are several busses with the same names taking different routes you also have to know how to ask your way around.

Last week I visited one school in a nearby municipality of Salvador, Vila de Abrantes. I waited one hour for the buss. To morrow I will go to a school in a northern suburb to do Interviews and to arrive there I will have to take two busses.

The historical - and current - situation of transport in this city probably has some blame in the fact that a frailly modern and active city such as Salvador still suffers from a “Manhana, Manhana” mentality where no one lifts an eyebrow when you arrive one hour and a half to late for a meating... Could be comparable to stories you might have hired about Arabic or African outskirts where you’ll be able to ravel on a set time “if Allah wants”...  

Initiative and will, as simple as that....

The last months have been hectic! With police strike and carnival substituting each other -visits from far away, robbery and much more on the personal frontier happening - February went so quick I barely noticed it. At least, due to the leap year, I’ll get an extra day tomorrow before March comes tumbling in.

I have done three interviews with people involved in the politics, implementation and management of Environmental Education in this city. And I have visited one of my cases; a school situated in the outskirts of the city, up on a hug hill with a fantastic view out over the Bahia de todos os Santos which is the name of the bay that characterizes the capital of Bahia.

The school will be a perfect example of an institution that started implementing EA on a wing, a project initiated by some enthusiastic teachers trying to make a difference. They have done what they had the possibility to do, nothing more and nothing less and they succeeded to turn a school which was near closedown in 2007 to turn around and gain support from the surrounding community and parents again.

The difficulties and challenges that this school deals with every day are breath taking.  The school may be situated on a nice spot and the sounding houses may be fancy but 98 % of the students comes from neighborhoods further away, living in poverty, in large families dependent upon governmental cash transfer program such as Bolsa Familia, with parents with no- or only a little education. It is a rough reality, which takes hold of them early, causing a high mortality rate, especially among young boys. Girls goes through sufferings and difficulties related to physical and fiscal, some times sexual abuse at home and is often forced to work, basically as slaves, with household shores from a young age. It is not hard to imagine how difficult it must be to administer a schools where almost every child have been physically stressed by it sounding since birth.

The initiative to implement Environmental Education transversally in the schools every day functioning have made the school a safe house. A beautiful school garden where the children, while learning math, got to mark out circles and triangles in order to create the flowerbeds an where the crops are used in the school lunches served. The school works a lot with communication in order for the children to reproduce what has been learnt, both for their own learning as well as for the solidarity in sharing knowledge and experiences with others. The school has been host for large encounters with other schools wanting to learn how to integrate EA in teaching and held in 2011 a large conference where many schools from the interior of Bahia participated with the purpose to strengthen the basis of education for sustainability and quality of life.

I’m looking forward to initiate my interviews with teachers and students and learn their experiences upon interaction, collaboration and relations with the community outside the schools walls!

Not even in my childhood anyone has ever pointed a gun at me

When I was a kid I went several years to a horse stable once a week to attend a horse riding class. I enjoyed riding, I loved the horses and I considered myself competent at what I was doing in the stalls. There was just one problem - I never fell of. It was commonly known among the girls in the stalls that not until you had fallen of a horse more than 100 times you knew well how to ride. I figured never knew well how to ride.

Just until yesterday I was happily aware of that I still had not experienced every aspect of the Brazilian society. The situation is somewhat similar to the horse riding - if you have ever read a Brazilian guidebook you know what I mean. According to most narratives of the Brazilian reality it is almost impossible to stay in Brazil without being robbed. Since I have made six longer trips to Brazil, lived in more or less problematic areas, traveled to the north and to the south, and still never felt threatened or insecure I was staring to believe that the guidebooks where wrong - until yesterday - when I “fell of the horse” for the first time.

I had made all the classical mistakes. Guiding my parents, my brother and my sister (who has been visiting during Carnival) around Salvador for some days, I had grown unwary and I took steps away from my normally rigorous safety precisions. We had been riding bicycles in the Pituacu Park and eaten a good lunch before we decided to go to the beach for the afternoon. It was the last day of my family’s round trip and we were just going down to the beach we always goo to. My husband had gone home to fetch his surfboard. The sun stood high on the blue sky and the area was well transited and suddenly I had a gun under my nose.

Two boys in their late teens pointed nervously with the old revolver at my family and me and demanded our bags and belongings. The guidebook lines I read before my first trip to Brazil in 2006 stood clear in front of me in this situation. “If threatened with a gun – don’t doo anything hasty. Hand over whatever the robbers would want – the risk of getting shot in this situation is grate since many of these guys rob for drugs and can’t think strait.” I didn’t have time to register the faces of the two; my gaze was on the gun. I told my family that they should hand over whatever they wanted, and in a blink the two was on their bikes, pedaling away with our things.

Oh what a rage! So stupid, so unnecessary, so foolish of me to take that way, so many things that I could have done or said differently! We did not just loos material things but photos and videos that only we can cherish, not to speak of the perfect feeling of being safe. No one has ever before pointed a gun at me, not even a fake one when I was a child!

I always knew that it was all bullshit that I needed to fall of the horse in order to ride well. Instead I was always sure to ride safely and to keep my balance in order not to get hurt. Only a stupid mistake could have made me fall off a horse.

This time although I made a stupid mistake and we had to experience something you shouldn’t have to experience coming to Brazil. I need to apologize deeply for putting my family in this situation!

Carnival – the biggest party of them all

Carnival in Salvador Bahia has been called the biggest street party in the whole world. The arrangers count in that about 3 000 000 people will join the party during the 6 day period that the carnival lasts. The city turns upside down; every one goes on holiday, all the biggest shopping malls closes and the traffic situation becomes if possible even worse than normal.

Carnival in Salvador is nothing like Carnival in Rio de Janeiro. More than being an orgy in dance, music and costume performance, carnival in Salvador is an orgy in partying. Every one can attend in one way or another. The popular music is constant and loud, and the mountains of beer stock that lines the parade roads grows smaller for each day as the piles of garbage and waste grows bigger.

People from Salvador love Carnival. Every one has memories from their teenage years when they danced in the ocean of people to their favorite music, kissed 10 different guys in one night, got brushed of by the merciless police or punched in the face by someone’s jealous boyfriend.

Carnival means summer in Brazil and as in Sweden during Midsummer or when the firs warmth comes to town - every one gets something dreamy in their yes during Carnival. It means free time, friends, family and relaxation above all.

Personally I have a hard time coping with all the people, noise and garbage. In order to enjoy myself I really have work my self up and be in a good healthy state so that I don’t get too tired – because if I stop to take a rest I fall down.

These days, I think it is around the 25 of Feruary there will be a Carnival in Stockholm at Mynchenbryggeriet. The party is more in Rio-style but absolutely worth a visit If you want to get some Brazilian vibes!

Police strike and corruption in Salvador

It has been a strange week – the strangest I have ever experienced in Salvador. It is not uncommon that different workers go out on strike here in Brazil, some times it is the teachers, other times it is the public servants, the nurses or the factory workers. This year I have also learnt that the police force several years in a row have gone out on strike just some weeks before Carnival. This year was no exception.

It is against the Brazilian law for Polices to go on strike and an order to arrest about 10 of the strike leaders was soon issued. About 2000 men in the Bahian Police force joined the strike, and they didn’t just leave the streets disserted, smaller groups of policemen in civil clothing also agitated the population and stopped busses on the street and demanded people to walk. In the journals there was pictures of men dancing in the streets, pointing guns in the air.

At the same time many areas in the city suffered from armed robberies and plundering of stores and houses. As a result – two days on to the strike the streets lay disserted and people stopped going to work with fear to be assaulted on their way there. I never experienced such a strange feeling on the streets of Salvador where the roads are normally crowded and noisy. The Governor of Bahia did not see any other way out than to call for the help of President Dilma who sent the national military guard to protect the population of Bahia and to arrest the strike leaders.

The strike leaders occupied a state building at CAB – The Administrative Center of Bahia (where I have been doing my Internship during the last few months and were I still doo some work) and the military surrounded the area. Soon the whole administrative center was cut off for ordinary people and no one could go to work. I got a feeling of a city on the verge of war. Men clad in green and armed up to their teeth suddenly patrolled the streets.

In Boca do Rio we where horrified to hear that five homeless people had been killed, or more precisely executed, by policemen during one of the first nights of the strike. We got even more horrified when we realized that one of the people killed was an old friend of my boyfriend – Alan do Rap, a person widely known in the area as a true rap talent – once he sang with Blondie in front of 30 000 cheering spectators.

Now the policemen has left the occupied building and most of the strike leader have been captured. Today we read in the newspapers that five policemen that for several years executed several people in different areas of Salvador in exchange for money have been identified and arrested – acused of the murders here in Boca do Rio during the first days of the strike.

Hopefully at least some parts of the corrupt and lawless sections of the Bahian police force are already behind bars by now.