Neuza and Parada de Lucas

I decided to go up and check out the northern community of Parada de Lucas, where my friends Karina and Rafael have been doing community projects. Karina teaches an art class and Rafael, even though he is Mexican, has been in Brazil long enough to be an accomplished capoeira teacher. The woman that runs the program, Neuza, grew up in this neighborhood, and as Karina put it, is like Mother Theresa except she "shags, smokes and drinks." This favela is in the northern part of the city, a place few tourists or foreigners go on purpose. Since practically ever major attraction is located in the southern part of the city (Christo, Ipanema and Copacabana beaches, Pao de Azucar), the north has been largely forgotten and ignored. You get a totally different sense when walking into the favelas here, they're grimier and smell horrible because of the lack of proper plumbing. In any case, I thought I should see it firsthand, and I'm glad I did. The kids in this center, although hyper as hell, were great. Here are a few shots I got.

Kitesurfing Ipanema

Taladanatela Exhibition

About a month ago I came to Rio de Janeiro from Buenos Aires to take part in an art exhibition of graffiti artists, most of whom are from the notorious Favela communities of the city. Fortunately by the time the event (which changed dates numerous times) was held, my Visa was still valid so I decided to come back (on a 42 hour bus-ride). There will be a much longer blog post about my 2nd trip here once I am back in Argentina next week, but for the time being here are some photos of the exhibition as well as a 7 minute long, very roughly edited, video of the actual event. All in all it went well, seeing about 200 people come through, and was a great experience. Enjoy!
official Taladanatela Blog

La Bomba de Tiempo

Every Monday night in the Once neighborhood of Buenos Aires, there is a concert called La Bomba de Tiempo which translates to Time Bomb. The idea of the concert is to hear rhythm in its purest form, with nothing more than drums. The show is always 2 hours long with the second hour featuring some sort of instrument, last night being a 6-string electric bass. Here is a compilation of last night's show, which to date has been the best one I have seen yet.

Correo Argentino

Ah, Correo Argentina, how I loathe you. About a month ago, my parents sent me a package for my birthday, which I knew would not come to me easily. 'Tis the life in this beautiful, yet sometimes frustrating land. The postman came last week with my parcel but no one was here to collect or sign for it, so instead of leaving a note with the address of the location to retrieve it, he left a piece of paper that said he, or someone else, would come by again. He did not mention however, a time or a date. It just said, someone will come again. Gee, thanks. Unfortunately for me, the second time the postman did come, our doorbell decided not to work, and I was at home! The note left this time did have an address to a post office, although as I would later find out, was not the correct one. Thinking this process would not take more than an hour, travel time included, I set off from my house and hopped on the subte. I arrived at about 2:45 pm at L.N. Alem 196, the address written on the notice, and was immediately summoned to a clerk's window. I thought hmm, this is too easy, no line, no waiting. I hand the clerk my slip, he disappears into the back and about 2 minutes later I see him kind of scratching his head as he starts typing in all this stuff into a computer. Uh oh. No matter where you are, body language is a constant, consistent way of reading someone. He had no idea where this package was, and I knew it. He went on to tell me that the postman had messed up, written the wrong address and that I would have to go around the corner to the main office, walk all the way down to the end and speak with the Customer Relations people. This was all said to me in probably the most incomprehensible accent I have heard to date. In any case, I followed what I had to assume were his directions and made my way to the office. There were two women at their desks (random note: One was named Silvana and the other Silvina, it was weird). I handed the slip that I got at my house and they looked at it and said, oh, this address is around the corner, to where I had just come from. I tried to explain as calmly as possible what the previous guy had said to me, that it wasn't right. After rooting around in her desk, Silvina or maybe Silvana, I don't remember, found a phone number that would lead me on yet another leg of my wild goose chase. She calls this mystery person at this other office, explains the situation, and hangs up. She explains to me that they are going to look for the package and then call back. About 10 minutes after sitting awkwardly in silence in this tiny little office, the phone rings, they have found the package!! The only problem is that it's at a post office way across town that closes in an hour and a half. This post office is the only one that holds international shipments, and it's in this seedy, dirty, Tijuana meets Delhi, part of town. Yippee! After speed-walking through downtown to the subway station that connects to Retiro, where the post office is located, I finally made it. This place was PACKED! Since I only had about 45 minutes to get through the line and get my package, I thought this would all be for naught, and I nearly gave up. I just really not want to have to go through this again, so I held out, and eventually my turn was up. I pass the slip, still with the LN Alem 196 address on it to the clerk, who tells me, no no, wrong address. At this point I'm very frustrated so I kind of yelled at him what had happened. He too walks away and gets on the phone, also for about 10 minutes. He finally comes back with my slip and says, yes, it's in the warehouse next door. Sweet! It wasn't that simple though. He writes something on my slip, a name. Koki. He then proceeds to tell me to go around to the warehouse, ask for Koki and he will sort me out. Uh, what? Who the hell is Koki, and why can't the post office employee do this? Since I had no choice but to find Koki, I went to the warehouse where I found a nice security guy who knew who Koki was. We walk around the side of the building to where this little Wizard of Oz door slot is, he rings the bell, and who I would later find out is Koki asks who it is. The security guard explains my situation and immediately two huge metal sliding doors retract. It's KOKI!!! I hand him my slip and he too disappears, this time into a MASSIVE abyss of post. And wouldn't you know it, he reappeared with MY PACKAGE!!! I felt like I had just beaten Muhammad Ali in a fight. Well, not really but I felt victorious, like I finally tamed the beast that is the Argentine postal service. It took nearly 3 hours all in all, but I got my package. Oh, by the way, on my way home the subte line that I needed to take stopped working about 3 stops before my house. Perfect!