January 14, 2012

Photo by Joanna Calabrese

Our departure from the MST settlement yesterday afternoon was bittersweet. Bitter because, as we were coming to know, the departure from each of these strong, miraculous communities left us all with hearts full of new knowledge and inspiration, minds full of questions yet to be asked, and bodies aching to take part in the work of solidarity. Sweet, though, because the community shared with us a moving goodbye ceremony, painting a stirring masterpiece of their struggles and aspirations.

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January 14, 2012

Photo by Eleonore Wesserle

We arrived after dark in Tome, a rural town situated on a dry plateau. Our group filed into what we’d been calling a community center. While it certainly was a community center, it was also much more: a memorial and museum dedicated to resistance and the struggle of its people. We settled into spots on benches, plastic chairs, and the floor, members of the community filling in spaces after us.

We were greeted by leaders, allies, and youth—except that it’s disingenuous of me to separate the leaders from the youth. In this struggle, they were one and the same. One of the women leaders introduced a young woman of maybe 15 or so, who’d lent her skill in drawing to lay out a map of the entire community. The young artist explained that Tome was one town in a community network of several on the plateau, and that the plateau and the community was known as Chapada do Apodi. She’d drawn the map to illustrate the dangerous proximity of

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January 13, 2012

Photo by Jesse Meehl

Over the past few days, we’ve had the great privilege of Cacique Pequena sharing the history of her people and the wisdom of her experience (“Cacique” is Portuguese for “chief). Over the course of these conversations, she intoned one striking expression again and again: “Our world went from paradise into an abyss.” From paradise into an abyss: an arresting and dramatic turn of phrase, still now turning my stomach and making my heart start.

Cacique Pequena graciously (and with much humor, may I add) granted the privilege of an uninterrupted interview to the Line Break Media crew. In our interview, we asked Cacique Pequena about this choice of words, what she wanted to make understood. I expected her to speak of the pollution of Ypioca, of the near irreparable damage that the pollution caused. I expected her to speak of the painful curtailment of the Jenipapo-Kaninde’s land. I expected her to speak of the loss of the community’s original language. In short…well, in short, the point that I’m uncomfortable to admit is that I’d already formed some expectations.

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January 12, 2012

Cacique Pequena                                                         Photo by Caitlin Burns 

To hear Cacique Pequena speak is to appreciate the incongruity of her title, “Small Chief (cacique = chief or leader, pequena = feminine form of small).” Though small in physical stature, she commands attention, emanating a force of personality and leadership that leaves no question as to how she could rise to be the first female indigenous chief in this region of Brazil. For the Jenipapo-Kaninde people, Cacique Pequena was a more than suitable selection, and she has proven her dedication and determination throughout the struggles the community has had to face.

Nestled against the ocean a few hours out of the 2.3 million-member metropolis Fortaleza, the Jenipapo-Kaninde’s land is nothing short of paradise to my eyes. Tall sand dunes bejeweled with dark green vegetation surround an impossibly blue sweetwater lagoon, with views of the not-too-distant ocean if you can stand 20 minutes of climbing up sand (luckily, I could). Indeed, the area was christened as the “Village of the Enchanted Lagoon of the Jenipapo-Kaninde” by its people—Aldeia Lagoa Encantada Etnia Jenipapo-Kaninde in Portuguese.

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January 11, 2012

Values, stories, culture

We left New York City early Monday morning (Jan 10) on a red eye flight to Sao Paolo, en route to Fortaleza, Brazil, where we will begin this encontro. On the way to JFK airport, billboards from the financial markets bid us farewell: “Tell us your story,” prompts Citibank. “Only by understanding what people value can we better meet their needs,” opines HSBC. As someone who believes in the power of story to cut through the incessant whisperings of the dominant culture and get to our shared values, these messages unnerve, unsettle, and galvanize me.

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Due to the limited internet access we encountered throughout our time in Brasil, we will now begin to post the journals that we have collected throughout our travels. We shall do our best to keep the order chronological so that you may have the opportunity to experience these sights and stories in the same sequence that they unfolded before our eyes. Thanks for reading.  

- Caitlin

Hello internet connected world! We’re back from Brazil and in the process of compiling all of our video footage, pictures and stories. We’ll be reflecting and posting a lot in the coming weeks, and in the meantime check out this excellent overview of the experience from our newfound companheira Ashley Trull. 

Ate logo, 
- Erick  

—

(cross-posted from Ciclovida Tour: Writings from the Road)
 

Resistencia, Convivencia, Creatividade, e Solidariedade at the Ciclovida Encontro in Brazil

Like bees
We gathered
In a swarming mass
Energy buzzing
Off each other
Vibrating through one another
With this sort of rapid, ecstatic frequency
As we sing and hum
Around the sweet scent
Of resistance

In Barra do Lemme, the home of the Ciclovida farm in northeast Brazil, it is not uncommon to find yourself surrounded by the buzzing, humming, zipping energy of bees. They seem to be everywhere: swarming around freshly cracked-open cane, curiously crawling into cups of juice, hovering over the bright colors of shirts and plants and skin. And it was that sort of bee-like buzzing energy, curiosity, and sense of community that for me was characteristic of the Ciclovida Encontro. It was a 10-day gathering of activists and ecologists of all ages: 35 coming from Brazil, 23 from the United States, 2 from Chile, and 1 from the Netherlands to learn together, exchange ideas, and take action for environmental justice, autonomy, and a new relationship with a land. For me, it was an incredible gathering that pulled together an incredible (and incredibly large) group of various overlapping values, visions, and passions, but all with different paths and forms of action. Looking back, for me it was mainly an experience of resistencia,convivencia (co-living), creatividade, and solidariedade.

Building – Construindo
Um novo mundo
Juntos
With our minds and our hearts and our hands
We stand
In a pit of mud
A mired mess
Of sticks and clay and cane grass
Of capitalism and oppression
Of injustice

We learned about many different communities in struggle and the different formsresistance is taking here in Brazil. During the first half of the Encontro we had the incredible privilege of visiting various communities here in the northeast of Brazil in the state of Ceará. Our first stop was Jenipapo-Caninde, an indigenous community south of Fortaleza that has been struggling for a long time for a right to their land. They have lived on the land for generations and generations, and only in recent decades suddenly had contact with capitalism and development projects that tried to move in on their lands. The people of Jenipapo-Caninde organized against a resort development project that was going to be built on their land, struggled to have their land demarcated by the state as protected, and continue to resist against Ypioca, a huge sugar cane alcohol (cachaça) company here in Brazil that is using up and polluting the lake water of the Jenipapo-Caninde community. We got to speak with members of the community here and Chief Pequena, one of the only woman chiefs in the network of indigenous communities in the Northeast.

Raquel, one of the youth at Jenipapo-Caninde, showed us the community museum, explaining the history of her community and their struggle

The struggle of Jenipapo-Caninde is closely connected to another community we visited, the Tomé community in Chapada de Apodi who live on a plateau where it is difficult to get water. Agribusiness has moved in and started pumping water up the plateau, not for the people, but to irrigate vast plantations. The water resources of people in Tomé are being poisoned by the company´s pesticide use and pollution. They have been organizing for years against agribusiness´ crimes there and have been a strong force. One of the leaders in resistance from the community, Zé Maria, was assassinated for his prominent role in fighting against the companies destroying his community.

The third community we visited was the Comunidade do Trilho, the train-track community here in Fortaleza. The community here is organizing in resistance to World Cup development projects that are intended to displace thousands of people living along an already-existing train track. The community is a struggling, poor community that has been marginalized by the city and the state, which have given the people living here no voice and no say in the development happening in preparation for the World Cup in 2014. The plan, for which construction is expected to start shortly in a couple weeks, is to build a passenger train alongside the existing freight line, requiring the demolition of the houses of all these people, rather than the demolition of high-rises and commercial centers on the other side of the existing train tracks.

Talking with folks at the Comunidade do Trilho (train track community), about the World Cup development projects

In all of these visits, we had the incredible opportunity to talk with people on the frontlines of organizing against these injustices of agribusiness, capitalism, and the state. I personally took away a deep sense of courage and admiration for people and communities who are living resistance, every day, together with the people around them, because that is what they must do to live. I felt an incredible sense of shared history, shared identity, and tightly-knit community within the communities we visited and hope I can carry that sense back with me when I return to the United States, to my community, where resistance, for me and people of my racial and class background, often is viewed as more of a choice than a necessity.

But we dig our feet deep
And we reach our hands in
Because we see beauty
And potential
In the changing form
This brown muck could take

An afternoon meeting

The second part of the Encontro was spent at Barra do Lemme, a land settlement that the Ciclovida farm is part of, where we had the incredible experience of the culture ofconvivenciathere on the farm. I´ll never forget the incredible feeling of the first night at the farm when we had our first opening circle, 50 people sitting in our opening circle, with that sort of buzzing energy, finishing dinner as Ivania opened up the Encontro on the farm saying, “We are here to live together, learn together, and work together, sharing in our resistance and building a new world in resistance to and outside of capitalism.” I felt this surge of excitement to think that this could be possible and all of the faces, all of these people, would share with me in doing that. The following 5 days were spent living an ideal sort of life, all sharing the work of constructing projects that foster autonomy, sharing in the tasks of cooking and cleaning, sharing food, exchanging ideas, sharing poetry, songs, and music, celebrating together, and taking care of each other. Every day we would wake up, have breakfast together that was prepared by a group of people who started their day´s work 2 hours prior, make announcements about the projects and activities of the day, break off to do work for 4 or 5 hours (each person free to go to projects as they desired), regroup for lunch mid-day, take an hour or two to rest, jump in the reservoir, take a nap, take a walk during the hottest hours of the day, then gravitate back to the projects to work more in the afternoon, re-group for workshops and discussions early evening, have dinner, then have activities after dinner like workshops, presentations, discussions, open-mics, and even a foho dance one night!

We can make
Beautiful creations
From the scraps and wreckage
Of a broken system
We hold it in our hands
Even as it cuts us
Breaking our skin
There is pain
And courage
In the act of
Building something new

Working together on the natural building “healing house”

For me one of the main sentiments I experienced during the Encontro was the incredible sense of creativity. Together we physically accomplished constructing a cistern and filter system that will catch water and then filter it so it is potable. We completed a bike-power system that uses 3 pedaling stations to produce energy stored in a battery.  We constructed a healing house out of all natural materials found on the land there that will be a place for people in the community to receive and share natural therapy and treatment. Less tangibly, we built incredible strong connections between ourselves and our movements and our projects. I was incredibly inspired by the creativity of folks working on media during the Encontro: capturing stories, experiences, and moments with video, photo, and recording. As well as folks who created poetry, music, food and drawings; all of these things created using the resources at hand.  We talked about our movements and what we hope to create in the future moving forward together; we surely have built an incredible foundation for collaborating and working in solidarity with each other.

But our actions
Are rooted in love
And we will heal
Ourselves
The world
Each other
Taking care of one another
Through pain
Through borders
Through the hurt we feel in division
Forced upon us by capitalism
We are cut
We bleed
But together will heal
And grow
Like this wild forest
Bringing life and wonder
And resistance
In what others have deemed a dry forsaken place
But in it we see
Fertility
Potential

And to me, this experience of solidarity is much deeper than any I have ever talked about before because it is rooted in the personal relationships and friendships we built during this experience. It is the power of understanding more deeply that there are people organizing and struggling in other parts of the world at the same time and with shared purpose. The power of knowing we are organizing and struggling for each other and with each other. In general I just feel so grateful to have had this experience of connecting with folks from different parts of the world to openly and explicitly share in the struggle against capitalism and for autonomy, horizontalism, and a new relationship with the land and with each other. This experience has built a strong network of solidarity and shared resistance that will continue to build as we move forward together, overlaying this new set of connections with the other movements and connections we all already have. I hope you´ll be a part of this with me as we continue to work together!

Against all odds
We will take root and reach upward
In spite of beating sun and crippling heat
Dryness wearing at our feet
We will take what has been tossed away
And make art of it
We will revive what we can
And evolve as we can
Taking lessons from the ants
And the plants
And the snails
And the fungi
And the fish
Because we all wish
To be whole again
Part of the cycle
The ecology
Exchange
Interchange
Interdependence
We are descendants
Of a long-time-life
We are ripe
For change

-Ashley Trull

Photo by Caitlin Burns

Line Break Media’s January 4 fundraiser party was a success! Over 50 people participated in connecting with each other, hearing spoken word by E.G. Bailey, experiencing the Ciclovida story by watching the documentary, and sharing their own stories to travel to Brazil with us. Thank you  to everyone who participated in the fundraising party and contributed their perspectives and donations!

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