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jesus and ecology on the urban fringe

bar espumas, originally uploaded by marcia chandra.

Pirapora do Bom Jesus is a quiet, picturesque town of 10,000 people in the peri-urban fringe of the Sao Paulo Metropolitan Area. Three claims to fame:

1. In 1725, a statue of Jesus was found floating in the Rio Tiete. Since then, Pirapora has become a pilgrimage site throughout the year. The main plaza is surrounded by shops selling miniature statues of Jesus and the Virgen, with eyes that follow you no matter where you stand.
2. Samba de roda of Sao Paulo is said to have originated in Pirapora. The music and words are still being passed down by the elder generation.
3. Every year, foam reaching as high as 5 metres comes pouring down the river spilling onto the town’s bridge and roads like something out of “The Blob.” The foam is the result of densely polluted water from Sao Paulo dropping 25 metres down the Pirapora dam in rainy seasons. It has been found to be highly contamined with fecal coliforms and heavy metals. The houses and playgrounds that line the margin of the river are frequently repainted due to the thick black residue that gets left behind.

Restaurante Espumas (”foam”) has a very nice view of the river but is often closed due to poor conditions.

- Ottawa, Canada, 18 degrees Celsius, mostly clear night sky, listening to Grupo Folclorico de Pirapora “Samba de Roda: Nossa Gente”

Her forehead burned through mine and entered my soul

festa de iemanja originally uploaded by marcia chandra.

Sao Paulo, October 2004 - The room was in the back of the house. He wanted to stop in just for a moment to see her, to pay his respects, to feel her blessing.

I stood back, unsure of whether I should be there. I was not a believer. Would they see right through me?

But the pae de santo gently pushed me in. To the right, Leandro stood in another doorway and began talking to someone. The language they spoke was unfamiliar to me… yet familiar at the same time. Yoruba - the language of Brazil’s African ancestors. The language that connects afro-brazilians to their past, to their faith, to the spirit world. I had heard it before, in capoeira songs that spoke of wars and heroes and Candomblé gods. But hearing it spoken so naturally made it more beautiful and lulled me with its singing intonations and rounded words.

Leandro was looking at me. So were the other three men in the hallway. She had asked to see me.

I hesitated. Somebody squeezed my shoulder and I stepped in to face the doorway. I had spent a lot of time looking at the work of Pierre Verger, of Candomblé ceremonies in Brazil and Western Africa, but black and white prints did not do justice to the scene before me. Palm fronds covered the small floor and were topped with bowls of popcorn, yellow beans, green leaves - food for the gods, the Orixás. The table was littered with statues of different sizes, purpose and cultures - an African mask, a Virgin Mary, a bent over black wood devil, a tin Orixá… Candles burned everywhere, except for a small fluorescent lamp that left a blue cast on the walls.

And the mae de santo was in front of me, covered in an intricately embroidered white dress wider than she looked, her neck weighted down by strand after strand of colourful stones. Her face was old, but her eyes were not. They were deep and alive. I felt her presence. I felt we were alone.

She looked at me and asked me what I feared. She spoke in Yoruba, and someone translated into Portuguese for me, but it was like watching a subtitled movie - after a while you forget you are reading. I felt I had understood her and we were speaking the same language.

She asked me what I feared and I told her I feared I would not find what I was looking for. She looked at me then and put her forehead on mine. I felt a rapid heat flush my face, move down my neck, into my arms, down my chest, along my belly, around my vagina and through my legs. Until my toes, my lips, my fingers, my nipples all seemed to hold fire. She stayed that way for a long time, feeling her way through my soul, and then released me.

She said I had traveled a long journey and was strong, but I had to know what I was looking for before it could be found.

The rest of the night felt like a good visit with old friends. We all sat on the floor and ate food and chatted together in a mixture of Yoruba and Portuguese. It took me a while to realize that the mae de santo was in a trance, taken over by a male spirit who was speaking through her. A small child later took his place, bouncing around the room giving presents to each of us - I got a hair elastic with a plastic bow. By the time we left, the mae de santo had recovered herself, and poured us cold drinks in the kitchen while she jokingly told stories about my friend that made me laugh.

On the bus ride home, as we winded through the favela I never would have had the courage to go into myself, Leandro asked me whether I believed in what I saw. I realized then that I hadn’t even thought about whether I believed, that I had experienced and absorbed this encounter without once questioning my faith in it.

It is a profound and beautiful thing to live these moments when you find comfort in knowing there is more to the world than you are capable of understanding.

- Ottawa, Canada, 17 degrees Celsius, partly cloudy night sky, listening to Bebe’s “Siempre me quedará”

delicious ambiguity

time, originally uploaded by marcia chandra.

I wanted a perfect ending. Now I’ve learned, the hard way, that some poems don’t rhyme, and some stories don’t have a clear beginning, middle, and end. Life is about not knowing, having to change, taking the moment and making the best of it, without knowing what’s going to happen next. Delicious Ambiguity - Gilda Radner

is this real? you and me?

it feels real, but also like a dream. like a dream i never want to get out of. because it feels good to get so excited about you. it feels so natural to be walking home for half an hour at midnight thinking about you. warming up so far inside with your latest unexpected message. imagining you lying in my bed so i can hear you breathe.

i don’t want to know the end, i only want to know this moment.

- Ottawa, Canada, 20 degrees Celsius, partly cloudy night sky, listening to Booka Shade’s “Night Falls”

Bollywood Masala

Bollywood Masala, originally uploaded by marcia chandra.

I found my nosering on the floor today. It had been missing for over two weeks.

I remember when I first had my nose pierced, not many people seemed to notice. Someone actually thought that I had had it for years. Comments on how it suited me became intrinsically connected to a growing sense of personal connection with my Indian background, with my father’s family, despite not having the slightest clue what it actually meant: historically. culturally. symbolically.

Whatever, Bollywood was hot. And we were in Canada.

When I went to India a few years later, that high I had felt at being so obviously identifiable with a culture, that comfort I had felt at not having to explain a purpose - like you would for a tattoo - because culture was taken as a given (and, if asked, the answer would have been some muddy life philosophy mixed with astrological irony), morphed into the discomfort of once again being aware of what I was, or rather, wasn’t. My family noticed the jewelry right away, and linked it to that North American fashion trend of bhindis, mendhi, and sarees transformed into skirts and blouses. Like Madonna, right? I was like her, not like them.

But, they were appreciative, and seemed satisfied that these heirlooms of India’s diverse cultural heritage were making it big with non-Indians. (The prize, of course, was the Miss India storm descending on the Universe pageants).

So this 2-cm piece of metal, this simple symbol of a complicated cultural process of which I am a part of as well as an effect of, went missing one morning only to be rediscovered amidst the dust and glass bangles I had broken the night before. (The irony).

And I realized I had missed it; I hadn’t felt like myself without it. It+me had created our very own identity, one that wasn’t about the past or the future, but about who we are together in this place and time.

- Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, 25 degrees Celsius, mostly cloudly, listening to Gil Scott-Heron’s “Reflections”

time is living me

de la casa, originally uploaded by marcia chandra.

Boast of Quietness

Writings of light assault the darkness, more prodigious than meteors.
The tall unknowable city takes over the countryside.
Sure of my life and death, I observe the ambitious and would like to understand them.
Their day is greedy as a lariat in the air.
Their night is a rest from the rage within steel, quick to attack.

They speak of humanity.
My humanity is in feeling we are all voices of that same poverty.

They speak of homeland.
My homeland is the rhythm of a guitar, a few portraits, an old sword,
the willow grove’s visible prayer as evening falls.

Time is living me.

More silent than my shadow, I pass through the loftily covetous multitude.
They are indispensable, singular, worthy of tomorrow.
My name is someone and anyone.

I walk slowly, like one who comes from so far away he doesn’t expect to arrive

by Jorge Luis Borges

inspired hands

toreador, originally uploaded by marcia chandra.

New York, September 2006 - While waiting for the injera and lamb tibs to arrive, Hsaio (a self-learned hand reader) inspected my palms. Within those 25 squared centimetres, he interpreted my life and future. Two destinies to note: 1. There will be three men in my life that will love me forever that I will not love back. 2. My career in life has two possible but conflicting paths, and there will come a point when I will have to choose.

i’m working on it.

- Paris, France, 16 degrees Celsius

ask me who i am

I have an identity.
It is weaved together by multiple identities.
In some contexts I am a dancer, a scientist, a daughter, a believer.
But I know this is not the context you mean…

What you mean is where do i fit within a cultural-national-geographical reduction.
A definition with limitations,.
and little relevance to my own reflection.

There is no check-the-most-applicable box.

I am India, I am Spain, I am Canada.
Hispanic, European, (South) Asian, (North) American.
Brown, white, ambiguous, different.
North, South, East, West.
Oppressor, oppressed.
Ethnic. (But aren’t we all?).

I didn’t say ‘other’.

Questionnaires should allow multiracial people to check more than one racial category. ‘Other’ is not a suitable option.

morning call

sent: “…it was good to talk to you this morning. it felt like a long time even though it hasnt been a month yet. the more time goes the less my time in brazil seems real to me. that gets me down sometimes, that my life is so different right now that i think that the past 3 months was a dream. i kind of feel like im not living my life right now, like its somebody else and i’m stuck with the responsibility of making sure that person stays on track. but i really want to be on some other track and doing my own thing. well, i guess this year is about making sure that when this contract is over, i will know exactly what i’m doing next… i got lots of ideas, so thats good. that’s all for now. its march 1st today. my mother called me this morning to tell me it snowed in vancouver. im going to a capoeira angola class tonight. change through music and art in prisons inspired me (http://music.guardian.co.uk/classical/story/0,,2023828,00.html). and i saw the sunrise while listening to a voice i missed. its a good day.”

 

in reply: “…All I am saying is to be true to you and your destiny. Alot of the times we know what it is that we are supposed to be doing but we don´t do it for this reason or that. But at the end of the day it is about being happy and, as Lauryn Hill would say, praising God by fulfilling your purpose (I guess translated for your terms: getting all your energies in line in order to maximize your potential for growth and existing).”

thursday blues, hanif’s theories on friendship, and gen-isms

Did i tell you that I’m not working yet? I could have stayed in brazil 2 more weeks - stayed for Carnaval. That’s why I’m so super zen these days. Zenmothafuckenzen.

Staying positive, though. There has got to be a reason for why I am here or at least I’m going to make a reason happen. My friend, Sandy, just came back to Ottawa for a visit - he’s living in Nairobi right now - and we all caught up last night. He knows he doesn’t want to live here (in Canada) anymore. I feel kind of the same way: every time I come back it gets harder and harder to feel good about it. My soul is just telling me that I’m not in the right place right now. There are things I love about it, but not enough to keep me here. My friends will always be my friends, my family will always be there for me, and my career - well, its not really that much of a priority to me anymore or at least I don’t feel like I’m doing it right yet. This last trip made me realize that. I just want to be in a place where I feel like I’m learning every day, where I just want to jump out of bed everyday (maybe not at 6am, but at least by 8am). It doesn’t have to be Brazil, maybe Delhi, maybe Dakar, maybe New York… the world is mine.

Anyways, I have to keep in mind that it’s only been 2 weeks and it’s frickin cold. I was not made for the cold. Maybe this is just post-viagem blues. Maybe i gotta stop listening to Miles and put on some funky shit. Like Afrika Bambaata or Daddy Yankee.

But there is one thing great about winter: next to sleeping under the stars (in a hammock with a beautiful man) and listening to the sound of the surf all night, the next best thing is when it snows at night and all you can hear is the sound of snowflakes hitting the ground, and you go outside, look up and spin around until it feels like you’re just floating in the sky. That is a sweet feeling. Did you ever try that? I remember (one of) the first times i smoked up in high school, it was snowing that night and we did that and that moment stayed with me forever.

And those 2 friends stayed with me forever, too. Maybe that’s why that feeling was so special - it was intrinsically connected to the rhythmic bonding of our oscillating springs. (I recently discovered Hanif, a chemical physicist moonlighting as a sociological theorist, who also says that the volume, the colour and the inertia of friendships are the three key parameters to lasting relationships. He’s clearly a reductionist, but I still thought this was beautiful).

Anyways, I’m just going on and being random. Genevieve said some funny shit last night that needs to be shared.

Gen-isms (english proverbs from a creative francophone):

• show me the way to your tender-nest
• i found the natural e inside of me

- Ottawa, Canada, - 7 degrees Celsius (but “feels like -13″), overcast

• Watching: “Dick in a Box” music video
  
• Listening: Vengo soundtrack (”Naci en Alamo” is all soul, baby)
  
• Reading: The Walrus magazine and an excellent article on celebrity philanthropy in Africa (”Stars above Africa”, Chris Tenove, pp.44-53, Jan ‘07)
  
• Surfing: www.myspace.com (mary j. blige is my friend!)