quinta-feira, 19 de dezembro de 2013
terça-feira, 17 de dezembro de 2013
Giuseppe Arcimboldo, do you realize?
Do you realize we're floating into space?
Do you realize that's hard to make the good things last?
Do you realize that everyone you know will die?
That happyness makes you cry?
That the pain will not go away?
That the past is an illusion, and the future is unknown?
That we're limited brained?
That I don't know how to speake english?
That this is just a cheap copy of a song by The Flaming Lips?
That I should be doing something usefull?
That nobody is going to ready this anyway, so why bother?
That we shouldn't sweat the small stuff, and it's all small stuff?
That that is the title of a self-help book?
That Charles Bukowsky knew it all?
That i'm on the edge of my forties and I don't have enough money, time, hair, skills, energy, luck, health, guts, to go on?
That I'm going to carry on anyway, for that's the only thing to do?
quinta-feira, 12 de dezembro de 2013
terça-feira, 10 de dezembro de 2013
Mandimba
It
has a market, a clinic, a shop or two, a church and several schools.
Not much happens here. Traffic tends to pass right through. Most people
who live here were born here or here abouts. It’s not uncommon for
people to know each others business and there are families that have
been here for longer than anyone can remember. For you and I, Mandimba
might remind us of the towns and villages that raised us in our youth.
It has a feel of home.
Except that Mandimba is in Africa, in Northern Mozambique. Beautiful though it is, it doesn’t really look like home. The roads are dusty red and full of potholes. Most roofs are made of grass. The sounds of frogs and crickets drench the night-time air. It’s mostly very hot and sometimes very wet.
But most of all, the reason it’s not like here is that the industrial revolution passed it by. Sure, it has electricity and the occasional truck that passes through. But the plastic bags and bottles that clog the storm drains are echoes of industrial change that happened far away. Hardly anyone has a job that you or I would recognise. There are no factories or offices. And because wages are so scarce, there isn’t really any money. Each village grows its food, stores it for the year and ekes it out from one harvest to the next. Anything more complicated than maize or beans is imported from abroad. Few people know any other life, although a lot of people leave to learn a trade in the cities far away. But none of them return.
The problem isn’t that there isn’t any water - there’s plenty not far underground. But people in Mandimba don’t have pumps or anywhere to store the stuff. This means they only grow one crop a year. And that means they’re often hungry - and mostly undernourished. The problem isn’t the soil - the ground is fertile beyond anything we could hope for - but they only have the seeds and know-how to grow the simplest of crops. And there isn’t any market for anything more complex (unless you count tobacco, which nobody can eat). And the problem isn’t labour, there is quite enough of that, although many of the adults are sick with Malaria and AIDS. The problem isn’t really education or knowledge either. There are schools. Primary schools are free, and most can read and write. But anyone who is bright and able tends to leave the district. The problem is not the civil war. That finished nearly fifteen years ago, although it’s left its scars. And the democratic government is stable by the standards of the region and isn’t too corrupt. But for lack of resources (for which read money) national government policy stops at the district. It rarely reaches individual villages.
So the problem isn’t any one of these. It is all of them together: not enough water; not enough food; not enough trade; not enough knowledge; not enough healthcare; not enough education; not enough government.
And the result of this is death. A lot of death. A lot of unnecessary and untimely death from malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis diarrhoea and, not uncommonly, death in childbirth. And stalking all of this and hastening these deaths is the greatest plague of all, HIV and AIDS.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. And in the next few years we’re going to help the people of Mandimba fix all this.
MaMA is going to prove that for Mandimba - and for the millions of towns and villages all over the world that are, like Mandimba, unnecessarily poor - it doesn’t really have to be like this.
Source: http://www.ma-ma.co.uk/about-mandimba/4530606387
Except that Mandimba is in Africa, in Northern Mozambique. Beautiful though it is, it doesn’t really look like home. The roads are dusty red and full of potholes. Most roofs are made of grass. The sounds of frogs and crickets drench the night-time air. It’s mostly very hot and sometimes very wet.
But most of all, the reason it’s not like here is that the industrial revolution passed it by. Sure, it has electricity and the occasional truck that passes through. But the plastic bags and bottles that clog the storm drains are echoes of industrial change that happened far away. Hardly anyone has a job that you or I would recognise. There are no factories or offices. And because wages are so scarce, there isn’t really any money. Each village grows its food, stores it for the year and ekes it out from one harvest to the next. Anything more complicated than maize or beans is imported from abroad. Few people know any other life, although a lot of people leave to learn a trade in the cities far away. But none of them return.
The problem isn’t that there isn’t any water - there’s plenty not far underground. But people in Mandimba don’t have pumps or anywhere to store the stuff. This means they only grow one crop a year. And that means they’re often hungry - and mostly undernourished. The problem isn’t the soil - the ground is fertile beyond anything we could hope for - but they only have the seeds and know-how to grow the simplest of crops. And there isn’t any market for anything more complex (unless you count tobacco, which nobody can eat). And the problem isn’t labour, there is quite enough of that, although many of the adults are sick with Malaria and AIDS. The problem isn’t really education or knowledge either. There are schools. Primary schools are free, and most can read and write. But anyone who is bright and able tends to leave the district. The problem is not the civil war. That finished nearly fifteen years ago, although it’s left its scars. And the democratic government is stable by the standards of the region and isn’t too corrupt. But for lack of resources (for which read money) national government policy stops at the district. It rarely reaches individual villages.
So the problem isn’t any one of these. It is all of them together: not enough water; not enough food; not enough trade; not enough knowledge; not enough healthcare; not enough education; not enough government.
And the result of this is death. A lot of death. A lot of unnecessary and untimely death from malaria, pneumonia, tuberculosis diarrhoea and, not uncommonly, death in childbirth. And stalking all of this and hastening these deaths is the greatest plague of all, HIV and AIDS.
But it doesn’t have to be like this. And in the next few years we’re going to help the people of Mandimba fix all this.
MaMA is going to prove that for Mandimba - and for the millions of towns and villages all over the world that are, like Mandimba, unnecessarily poor - it doesn’t really have to be like this.
Source: http://www.ma-ma.co.uk/about-mandimba/4530606387
segunda-feira, 9 de dezembro de 2013
terça-feira, 3 de dezembro de 2013
Sobre o MASP e os moradores de rua
"Consumo de drogas no vão livre do Masp preocupa moradores e turistas", diz manchete de matéria no portal Globo. Segue um texto que traz depoimentos de pessoas que foram abordadas por usuários de drogas e que reclamam da presença de moradores de rua, que estariam transformando o MASP em "teto de luxo"... E então vem as sugestões de solução: mais policiamento e cercamento do prédio... Essas coisas podem ser vistas por outro ângulo: o Masp não está imune ao que o circunda, é parte da cidade e vai apresentar sintomas do que acontece com o resto da cidade. A cidade de São Paulo, como qualquer grande cidade do mundo hoje, está cheia de moradores de rua, pessoas em situação fragilizada, pessoas que estão sendo obrigadas a viver nas bordas do cotidiano. Expulsar, prender, oprimir, não são as coisas certas a fazer. Por que o Museu não toma a frente e procura dialogar de alguma forma com estas pessoas invisíveis que estão ali, sob seu ventre? Se for cercado por grades, ou se tiver presença constante de polícia enxotando as pessoas, então vira um espaço excludente... É o caminho mais fácil, mas é o mais errado também...
Turma do Curso "Arte como forma de pensamento", segundo semestre de 2013.
Foto de Juvenal Pereira
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