After so many days being away (due to the trip to Frankfurt and my final examinations at the Faculty of Fine Arts), I resume my publications…
I like this picture so much that I’ve been trying to find the right moment to publish it since the beginning. Many times have I almost showed it, but I think I never found the right words to go with it…
… I feel like that… holding to a string, trying to stand… to save what’s left. This final phase of the school year is harder on me than I had pictured it to be and what I didn’t want to happen has already happened: I have to do a subject in September…
The wire where we hang our clothes is, for me, an incredible synonym for equality. It is where we hang that t-shirt we like so much, the trousers we put on for a special occasion and so many other clothing items… everything with no distinction… it is also where we hang our old t-shirts and the dust cloths, the panties and the socks we rarely show to someone… all on the same wire…
… isn’t it a great synonym for equality?
It is with great pity that I verify that the DEL8 winning group won’t be travelling to Guinea. The political instability spoke louder and it has become too dangerous to travel there right now as the elections take place…
The alternative is Mozambique. It is not certain yet that the group will go there, but the opportunity of spending 15 days with a reality which is completely different from ours seems to me to be the best possible alternative.
The money that the “amnesties” have collected for Safi will be sent through the missionary Sisters (so it is granted it will get there). By the way, I take the opportunity to tell you that we have already received the money and that the total up until now is: 454,38€. It is a great help!
About the picture, I just want to say this:
Stepping on a mud where our feet get buried, do we stay focused or unfocused relative to what surrounds us? Do we only see what’s right in front of us or do we try harder to see farther, even if it means not understanding everything… to see everything in an unfocused way?
Este andar, que ao mesmo tempo carrega os instrumentos de trabalho, diz-me muito. Cada uma destas mulheres está ali a pescar para si, mas se não estivessem juntas o peixe fugia pelos lados.
Há melhor exemplo de como, ao trabalharmos juntos, conseguimos resultados muito melhores e maiores?
É tudo muito bem coordenado: levantam-se para caminhar e baixam-se para apanhar o peixe ao mesmo tempo... é tudo muito harmonioso...
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This walk, that carries the work instruments at the same time, means a lot to me. Each one of these women are there fishing for themselves, but if they weren’t together, the fish would escape through the sides.
Is there a better example of how, working together, we can achieve better and bigger results?
It is all very well coordinated: they stand up to walk and duck down to catch the fish at the same time… it is all very harmonious…
As we walked through the river mud, crabs would bite our legs and shells would tear our feet skin...
Meanwhile, Helena and the women held the fishing net, bent down, stood up, walked, grabbed the fish that got stuck in the net, balanced the basins on top of their heads and still managed to find the time to laugh along with us!
If I was asked to do what they were doing, I would surely starve! I could barely walk, let alone balance a basin with my head with fish jumping inside it!!
I still have many pictures of fishing left which I would like to publish, so I will dedicate a new photographic cycle to this activity.
However, I won’t add a long text, because although I do not believe a good picture is worth a thousand words, I also believe a thousand words can ruin quite a few good pictures!
What truly amazes me about this picture is not Franca’s pleasant look as she eats, which would be perfectly normal, since she is having the best meal of her day at the Nutritional Recuperation Centre.
What fascinates me is the fact that this picture shows the African people so well… that watery eye can’t take away her joy of another meal, the joy of her day!
That’s what the african people have that we don’t have! We are depressed because we’ve lost buying power and so we can’t satisfy our blistering consuming needs imposed by our society. The pressure to be trendy is unbelievable! The Nokia I own is the brand‘s cheapest phone and I’ve stopped counting the times I’ve heard comments about my technological dinosaur…
Thank you Franca, for that look with a tear that insists on not falling, along with your splendid smile and that happiness look!
If there is a thing i’ve learned with the guineans is to appreciate life’s little details, to be happy with little, because that “little” is actually a lot…
The “lot” we desire gets us to so little that I don’t understand how we get so easily taken by it…
DEL8 CONTEST: final results
Congratulations to the winners, which are all the participants!
Congratulations to those who won prizes, may you use them to promote these 8 goals until 2015!
Congratulations to the teachers, who plunged into this challenge following the typical enthusiasm and fascination of those who are 17 and want (which is great!) to change the world!
Congratulations to the schools, for being able to keep on educating us all, even with so many difficulties!
Congratulations to Safi, Helena and Sumai, who are going to meet 8 new portuguese people (5 students, a teacher and two of Consolata’s laywomen) and see the continuity in the projects, receiving the results of so many students who have worked here in Portugal!
Congratulations to the parents of the students who have participated, for you have wonderful children when it comes to humanitarian issues!
Early congratulations to the parents of the students who have participated and won the trip! Please let them go to Guinea-Bissau and live a unique life experience!
Congratulations to all of those whose hopes were high and were not awarded. Life is made of all of this, but there is a reward that no one can take away from you: having worked a whole year in order to reduce world’s poverty! You may not have another chance to dedicate to this theme in such an intense and long-term way…
And last, but not least, thanks to blogosfera, that allows me to write freely, with no censorship, to those who want to read, to those who want to interpret!
Today is a very happy day in my life!
Esse seu olharThat look of yours
When it meets mine
Speaks of some things I can’t even believe…
This excerpt of a song by Tom Jobim, even out of place, suits better than the words I was thinking of writing…
It is the eyes what we know better in people. It is there that our first look is directed… it is the look that tells how we feel… how the ones surrounding us feel…
… that’s why it is so important to look each other in the eye!
I only saw this boy on the day I took his picture.
His look disturbed me… he looked straight ahead, with no fear or evasions… it was always me who looked away…
He didn’t talk much, but he liked posing for the photos. While taking this one, I bent so my eyes were at the same level his were and he also bent…
This attitude makes us think… does one always bend when someone does it next to him?
Ok... I can’t keep a silent cycle...
There is so much to write that I can’t limit myself to posting pictures…
This is Tomás once again, of whom I have already written so many times. By looking at this picture I was reminded of a conversation I had with Helena – his older sister – during which I asked her who ate less at home. She replied it was Tomás. He just ate two or three spoons of rice and that was it…
I must confess that with the ending of the DEL8 contest and the ending of my classes (both the ones I teach and the ones I attend), I have been swarmed with work…
Since I still have many photos, I think I will take the advice of Ketta and make a silent cycle… (comments are, however, welcome!!)
