photoblog um: lugares

Bellatores, Santa Catarina.

Centro, Porto Alegre.

Mathias Velho, Canoas.

Feira do Livro, Porto Alegre.

Gaúcho mural, Porto Alegre.

Magazine store, Porto Alegre.

Sunset, Torres.

Street, near Cidade Baixa, Porto Alegre.

Canta Brasil Sul

À ce moment je suis en train de travailler dans le petit bureau de Canta Brasil, mon organisation culturelle ici en Brésil. Elle est située en Canoas, un banlieue de Porto Alegre. Il y a maintenant cinq personnes dans deux petits salles, ça veut dire un garçon de quatorze ans, trois filles d’entre seize et vingt ans, et la mère, qui est aussi une administratrice, d’une des petites qui danse avec l’équipe de Canta Brasil. C’est assez normal que tout le monde chante, crie et danse autour des salles dans n’importe quel moment pour n’importe quelle raison…En fait, il est bien intéressant d’essayer de faire du design graphique au milieu de cette énergie!

Le mandat de mon organisation est de créer un meilleur atmosphère pour les enfants dans les endroits les plus pauvres de Canoas, au même temps faisant une connaissance positive de la culture ici. C’est surement plus qu’une ONG simple, c’est actuellement un ‘mouvement institutionnel culturel’. Ils ont, comme des associés, des autres ONGs (le plus fortement avec Afroreggae, qui était la partenaire fondatrice de Canta Brasil), des organisations de communications (comme le DCS, une entreprise majeure de la publicité et markéting ici en Porto Alegre), aussi que des citoyens privés qui s’intéressent dans les activités du mouvement. C’est bien intéressant que mon organisation est plus connue dans les cercles “chiques” de Porto Alegre que dans les associations sociales et politiques, mais je trouve que c’est un exemple du classement social qui caractérise la plupart d’interaction sociale au Brésil.

Le semaine passé je suis assisté à la Semaine de Communication, une semaine des ateliers, conférences et débats sûr des topiques diverses concernant la communication, la publicité et le graphisme. C’était vraiment une évènement tellement bien réalisée, et j’ai trouvé qu’il était tellement instructif d’avoir eu une chance de comprendre quelles sont des perspectives particulières du graphisme ici. Il y avait des cérémonies des prix donné de la part du Semaine de Communication, et l’entreprise qui a fait l’annonce suivant (en bas) pour Canta Brasil, a gagné un prix pour le même campagne dans la catégorie des annonces des journaux.



Ça me plait beaucoup d’avoir l’opportunité de contribuer aux projets ici pour Canta Brasil, car je crois qu’ils font quelque chose assez différent en se focalisent de l’importance du talent et de l’éducation pour améliorer des vies des jeunes ici. De plus, mon directeur, Rubielson Medeiros, et une personne vraiment pleine de l’énergie de vivre, qui est évidement une pointe d’inspiration pour tous les gens ici. Je vais additionner des points intéressants dans les prochaines sémaines, puis merci pour lire.

brasil -- duas semanas depois

pensamentos pra as primeras duas semanas...


Dia das Crianças, Porto Alegre

Brazil...strange and beautiful. the first thing you notice is the smell. Meat, shit, sweat. The air is heavy here, at times, thick with moisture and dirt and sound and yes, sex. But the beauty of this country is either brilliant or muted. Brilliant, as in the myriad of fresh fruits and vegetables of the public market, or in the smiles of the children of the church-turned-dance school in the favela, or muted, as in the quiet sadness of the man with his four emaciated, sleeping dogs lying down amid the bustle of my city's central square.

Sometimes it is ugly as well, particularly here in Porto Alegre. On days when the sun fails to break through the clouds, and the gritty reality of decaying concrete and inadequate garbage collection presents itself with unabashed certitude, yes, this city can be called feio, dégeulasse, sad, angry, alive. In stark contrast to the Disneyesque beauty of downtown Belo Horizonte, the centre of this city is a violent mishmash of grace and anger, desire and desperation. Rows of delicate colonial architecture, like the candy-coloured neighbourhoods of children's novels, frame a game pantomime of ordinary workers and beggars hustling to earn their daily Reais.

There are so many products available here, it is overwhelming. Farmacias stock hundreds of boxes of women's hair colour; the chain store Lojas Americanas (literally,"American Stores") carries everything from Barbie dolls to incredibly overpriced home electronics (A basic Sony digital camera goes for more than $800 Réais...the average Brazilian makes less than that a month); and the local supermarket has an entire aisle dedicated solely to cookies. In the streets, hawkers sell indigenous jewelry, sandals, toys, pirated DVDs, brassieres, electronics, gold, barbequed meat, sunglasses, fake rats, dreams. I begin to wonder what development has really brought to this region, supposedly the richest in Brazil.

Here in Rio Grande do Sul the regional symbol of the 'solo gaúcho' is everywhere. The Gaúcho is essentially a cowboy, typically costumed in tall boots, billowed pants, a beret, scarf and often a moustache. He lives in the serra, or plains of the southern and eastern parts of the state, tending cattle and/or farms with his family. Often he can be found in bars that don't close, buying drinks for foreign nationals (ahem) and stamping one booted foot in regional pride. The other symbol indicative of this region, dependably omnipresent, is maté. Often we see people walking about parks with their thermos of hot water and their ceramic pots of maté, drinking this concoction (chimarrão) for two or three hours.

For the next week and a half the Feira do Livro (Book Festival) takes place in Porto Alegre. The feira includes author and academic talks, live musical performances, kiosk upon kiosk of booksellers, and a free film festival. I attended my first Portuguese movie tonight, alone. (That should probably read, I went to my first movie alone, which happened to be in Portuguese.) Titled Achados e Perdidos, it was a well-rendered, passionate and sombre tale of death and love in Rio. When the movie ended, and I exited the theatre, it was raining. Magically, the few street merchants scattered along the Rua das Andradas were selling umbrellas.

i was hiding! en français!

bonjour les amis...

so, i am currently living in Montréal embroiled in intense training for the Canadian Armed Military Light Army Brigade.

Well, not really, but at times it feels like it! Pour élaborer: I am training for an internship with Cyberjeunes/Alternatives, a Canadian NGO with programmes throughout Asia, Africa, and South America. This training consists of full-time courses in graphic design (le graphisme), website and blog management (formation Web), database management (aka hell), video editing (montage), Portuguese classes, "mobilisation" (various conferences and boot camps related to the the social justice and equitable trade movements), and fundraising for our trip (levée de fonds).

My internship is going to be in Porto Alegre, Brasil:


Look at the little pink hipster building! (photo by Zórzimo Croquezz)

where I will be doing graphic design and public relations for an NGO called Canta Brasil. From my understanding (translated from portuguese --> french --> english) the directors run school programmes in the favelas (slums) to teach kids dance (specifically, ballet) and singing so that they have a better life and don't get involved in crime.

This is going to be fantastic.

Meanwhile, life in Montréal is busy, entertaining, and full of bikes. The last point is incredible considering the following:

1) drivers in Montréal do not signal when turning, even across three lanes of traffic;
2) the bike lanes can be described as sporadic at best, and, being two-way, are often more dangerous than taking your chances in the street with cars;
3) no one wears helmets, uses hand signals, or yields;
4) bike theft is rampant; yet seemingly 75% of montréal homeowners post "PAS DE BICICLETTES" signs on their gates, fences, poles etc. (I've even had servers come out of bars and tell me not to lock my bike to what I thought was just a post on a city street but was apparently private property.)


At any rate...being immersed in French is definitely demanding (all my training and 85% of my interaction each day is French, so that I experience some difficulty speaking English if the first time I say anything in that language occurs after 6pm), but often hysterical. For instance, did you know that the French word for "raccoon" is raton laveur...which literally translates to WASHING RAT?! Last Sunday, delerious after three days of early morning conferences in three languages, none of which were English, I nearly collapsed in a fit of giggles at this discovery. All my French compadres think I'm totally insane, by the way.

Side note: as I write this blog, the instructor is teaching us how Facebook works. Ecccchhhhh...

If it interests y'all, there is a blog that all the stagiaires (interns) have made, to give people an idea of what we have all been up to. Last weekend we participated in the Forum Social Quebeçois at the Université du Québec à Montréal (UQÀM)...you can read about it here.

c'est tout pour maintenant...
More photos/writing/french soon!

bisoux.