Today I hit up la villa
Out in Carillo I kicked it with Pablo, Eric, Jonathan, and Sergio and Alfonso.
On the bus home I met Hernan. He is a construction worker who used to swim in the river the 46 bus is driving past as we’re talking. It looks like an oil spill with garbage sprinkles. Why do we pollute so much? I wonder out loud. “–because we have not learned that tomorrow is born from today,” he says.
Spit Hernan Spit my brother.The subway in Buenos Aires is called the Subte. Its like a dingy old living room on wheels. We barrel through the bowels of the city as the teenage boy tucked away into his hoodie sleeps to the train’s rhythm and the Peruvian mama listens with a grin to hear daughter begins a story that gets trapped in her chubby cheeks next to two old ladies who speak in a horse race about the boy who still asleep next to an old man with emphysema. Whoever said there is no country for old men had never been to Argentina. The doors creek goodbye.
Goodbye.
I used to have a friend who was one of those really really dark skinned people from India. Those folks got a certain beauty. But I never expected to see one in a Bolivian music group playing the Zamponia. There are borders where we don’t even see…
Maria can’t see out of one eye. But she works and studies and raises a daughter in the borderlands of Buenos Aires. A Bolivian unafraid to greet me with ocean water smile and a “que mas Señorcito?” as we walk next to each other through the river of trash left by the day’s festivities. What more? She asks me, a typical Bolivian greeting. What more? Well Maria, I would just like enough insight to be able to see with both my eyes things as they really are.
You know those big inflatable bouncing rooms that they got at festivals for kids play in?… society needs more of those, for people of all ages to jump around and not get hurt.
Seven out of the eight Argentineans I spoke to on my way to the Bolivian hood told me to watch my wallet over here. I’m sure they were just trying to look out and all. Probably the same as people say it if you coming to the BX or going to the Bonlieu or the townships or the favelas or the slums up in quito or the borderlands, but while my wallet is tucked tight in my front pocket, I’m sure I feel more peace of mind here than where the rich and the tourists waddle around in a state of worried wonder. Here we yell and laugh and eat whatever.. cuz why not? Wallet security is no guiding principle.
The two-year-old Bolivian can barely walk but she grabs a baby size fist full of boldo and fills up a plastic bag. She looks at me. I must be a customer. She hands me the bag. I take it. She smiles. She fills up another bag. And gives it me. I put them both back… she frowns. Way ahead of the game.
He sells every herb. And coca. The sacred leaf of the Aymara and the Quechua people. The illegal substance that numbs or runs the angry and empty people. Alfredo has been in Buenos Aires for two years and has mastered the Argentinean accent. It’s a matter of survival. Racism kills. Damn. Can he live?
I haven’t been here in 7 years… Chicha, Chancho, Silpancho, Salchipapas y mamas en brightest colors dancing that simple Bolivian two step with their papacito wearing matching suits, wasted at 1pm. The borderlands of Buenos Aires sway back and forth in front of me to the baaaw boom of Andean drum beats and the wwwwhhhiii huuuwwww huuuwww hhiiii or the pan flute… enough to convince me that I’m back under Tunari, the snow capped god above Cochabamba, Bolivia. The land where I realized if I’m not a brother to you all, I am nothing. I eat a salteña and sit down on the grass next to Alfredo. This hood full of immigrants is medicine. And I didn’t even know I was sick.
What the hell is that? You ask as you pass underneath the bridge on paseo colon and the beginning of 9 de Julio. Here at the intersection of two streets, one named for the celebrated bearer of genocidal colonialism and the other for the date of independence when that colonial rule finally ended…it smells like death. Its loud and dirty and chaotic, the highway above feels like it might fall on you and the colectivos (buses) rumble by at way faster than a safe speed. Its ten pm and by the yellow glow of the street you see what looks like an archaeological dig. You squint. You lift your gaze from the deep hole next to the sidewalk to see a collection of papers with something typed out on each. In the center of the space you finally make out the figure of a human, dug out in the dirt and painted on the ground. It’s a symbol you recognize. It’s the figure that represents the disappeared. You realize, here under the bridge, where independence and colonialism meet, you are in a graveyard.
Fuck. Even my computer is a racist capitalist. It automatically capitalizes things like names and the first letters of sentences… But tell me how it automatically changes gatorade to Gatorade, but when I write the name of an African country: niger… it is left lower case and marked misspelled? Grimey... It also must be religious because it likes me to capitalize the word god… interestingly it converts the b of Buddha to a capital letter but leaves jesus looking misspelled. Mohammed also gets capitalized. Oh ok, Christ also got bumped to a capital C, just no dice for the j in a plain jesus. Weird. Insight into the politics of whoever designed my computer program… I’ll keep you updated as I get to know my machine a little better…
Today, 10/10/10, the Peace Poets ran 26.3 miles through the streets of Buenos Aires. I wrote five pages of reflections, celebrating the human spirit of the event and questioning the consequences of it being wasteful and classist. Can’t keep the peace poet quiet… I ran with Lau and two friends from New York and while it was fun to be part of this river of runners, I couldn’t help thinking about how the youth I’m working with will probably never have the flow to participate in something like this and wondering why we gotta waste so much water… I’ll try to edit down those pages for yall to read it. It ended up envisioning a new kind of marathon… one that takes the whole world into account. For now, I’m just letting you know. I ran madd far…
And when the going got tough and I thought my legs were gonna fall off I threw on the headphones and CypherMatrix rejuvenated me completely. Nothing like hearing my brothers on the mic to reinvigorate the soul. We finished, we hugged and they handed us a little piece of paper that said “GRATIS: 1/2 Chori”… which meant we got to get in a line behind a huge grill and they were gonna hook us up with half a sausage sandwich for free… So Argentinean! You gotta love it. Marathon = Victory. More to come….
Right now I’m reeling in inspiration from spending an entire day with my crew…from hundreds of miles away. I would like to be able to hug the people who made this technology possible for me to have kicked it on the 3rd floor of a BX living room without leaving Buenos Aires. Aside from all the dire dehumanizing effects of the tech revolution, I extend both my amazement and my gratitude to those work indirectly allowed me to share in the peace poets retreat this past weekend. We checked in, got open, learned from each other in workshops that touched on our specialties, and reignited yet again, our passion for our music, our art, our struggle. Thank you.
The peace poets are writing a book. These days I write from Buenos Aires but Abe, Frank, Ram and E are here with me. They are the mirror which this author uses to criticize and counter and challenge his the importance of his words. Are these the stories that represents our struggle? Is this the poetry that the people need to hear so they can work harder or smile easier? Tell me brothers. My knowledge of them, of us, is enough. I read their answers in my memories of who we are. So day in and day out, I open up the soul’s notebook to decipher what inspires us to rebel. Rebel against violence and apathy and laziness and racism and ignorance and silence. As I write the code is becoming clear. The simple subtitles to it all. Peace makers are made by a world at war, but we must be more than a response, more than rebels. We must be doctors that heal and poets that paint something new. Something never before imagined in this way at this moment. And this new thing becomes the path and each step is a victory.
I just thought of Abe’s poem about a smelly man asking for change and perfumed him walking away and how ugly is made relevant. Today, dirty was made relevant for me. I cross the highway and stop to let traffic pass me by in the middle where a group of people camp out and try to make some change by cleaning the windshields of cars stopped at the traffic light. When they saw me stopped there alone, they rolled up on me like cleaning windshields wasn’t the only way they made money… I greet them and ask how they are doing like they were my peoples… They get a little confused. I put out my hand. They are suspicious. Their hands, along with their clothes and face, are covered in grime and dirt. Strangers don’t shake these hands. Nine times out of ten, being friendly inspires a friendly response. No dice with these guys. One starts yelling at me. What are you doing here? Get the hell away from our spot! I don’t stress it and as I’m walking away, he yells get out of here, Sucio(dirty)! Its easy to dismiss people as crazy. But he is saying what he has probably heard a million times. How many people have said those words to him? How many times has he been reduced to being homeless? Jobless? Sucio? In the eyes of a society that pretends so hard to be clean. Clean like the shoes of generals while they order more people tortured, disappeared, executed in a war that history only has one word for: sucio.
Tell me how the 5:48 am train leaves the station at 5:45… grimey. I know because Lau and I ran after it this morning. Yup, just like the movies running for the train as it pulls out of the station. Except we didn’t catch it. We caught the next one and showed up ten minutes late. But the good news is that if we weren’t sure whether the kids were feeling us, we got to enter the classroom today to a booming applause. I was humbled. Laura and I went through a quick check in and then I spit: La Cadena Mas Immensa, a poem that becomes a promise to speak out against the inhumanity and horrors of violence against women. Reaction positive. You never know how spoken word is gonna go over for thirteen year olds, let alone in a place where spoken word is as foreign as fufu (west African food made out of plantains and yucca-madd delicious). But it went well and we transitioned into a conversation about different kinds of violence like insults and social exclusion. The mission of the association we are working with is to eradicate violence in schools and so Laura and I are combining their methods with those of the Peace Poets and Artered (artered.org). So far the collaboration is flowing naturally and powerfully. The workshop then gave birth to one enormous group poem that cited different moments in the young people’s lives when they have seen instances of violence. They cited friends murdered, stabbings on their blocks, getting beat up at school, cousins being raped and many more painful moments. The lyrics hit hard but their voices are extremely timid so they struggled to even hear each other. Little by little we will develop the lion in their voice. It is there. We closed by saying all the things we deserve. All up in the axe circle, talking bout we deserve respect, we deserve freedom, we deserve a day off from school… it was good. One- Family, One- Family.
~*
The streets of this hood are mud and clay. People have the dirt on their hands. Workers. Barrio Roberto Carillo is on the outskirts of Buenos Aires. It’s sunny and this hood has me finally feeling at home. We’re walking the streets. Around the corner comes the toughest looking dude we’ve seen so far, all pierced up, tatted out and dressed in black walking toward us with the stare of an executioner. When he is a few feet away he sings out the name of the old neighborhood futbol coach we are walking with and grill turns to grin. They greet with a kiss. Then I go to give him a point and he brings it in for the real thing… Kissed by a thug in the middle of the street. Totally normal here in Argentina. Alright, I’m cool. Keeping it moving...
It’s a city… so its hard to see the stars. Maybe that why nobody looks at her. Her name is Estrella, what’s your name? She wants to know…
Where Buenos Aires flirts with the flagrant consumerism of Fifth Avenue, she walks around with no shoes. She holds a two year old whose filthy face is made ghostly by eyes staring into space. Her plea is simple: give me money for milk for the baby. She got the desperate look perfected. I stare back, overcome with saddness… ‘no mi hija, lo siento’ (no my child, I’m sorry)…
Why am I sorry? I am sorry that she is barefoot and begging. I am sorry there are two woman twenty feet away who are probably exploiting her by the way they are watching to see if she gets any money out of me. I am so sorry that she already done this eighty five times today and seven hundred times this week and I ‘m sorry that she is thinking that I’m only sorry because I can’t give her a 25 cent coin when I’m really sorry that I can’t give her access to a shower, a good meal, some shoes and a family to care for her or because she might have those things but still be trapped in this perverse vocation. And I’m so terribly sorry that millions and millions of children are also being denied their basic human right now. And I’m sorry that Laura and I are the only ones in this Argentinian 5th Ave. mourning her childhood. I am sorry. While she just wants to know if I’m going to put my hand in my pocket and take out a coin to get rid of her. That whats she’s banking on. For a second, I wonder that too. A penny for my thoughts… to disappear. That’s not gonna work today.
And in these moments, the havoc of my humanness is incited. I succumb to sorrow that ignites anger. I’m mad. Furious that the same human beings who would throw themselves in front of a bullet to save their child, could walk by somebody else’s while she dies slowly. Can I have faith in the callous majority right now? None. We are too miseducated, too engrained in our rationalizations of our injusice. I look at this little girl and ask her name.
We talk. She laughs. My inspiration to work hard cannot come from the anger at our frequent expressions of inhumanity… What makes me a better man has and will come from the people who are living and dying in pain and danger. From their loving touch under the shadow of hunger, their steadfast steps toward dignity and survival and their ability to still laugh with the guy who won’t even give them a quarter for food because he hates their exploitation. In this moment I can’t find a hint of hope in the masses that walk past us in a hurry. But if I could make a wish for a future without wars of bombs and blindness it would be on her… Estrella…. The first star I saw today. And on the millions behind her in the darkness...
…. P.S. As I finish writing this, I read the words painted on the wall next to me:
“Es importante que cad uno haga lo que pueda desde su lugar.” = “its important that each person do what they can from where they’re at.”
… yah. That’s basically what I’m saying.
At 13, the universe explodes. A lot of times. Whether you in Harlem, Haiti or the hood of La Plata where Laura and I just did a workshop it happens. And when it does… Lips flap windstorms or stay shut tight, heartbeat like a 100-yard dash and the balance of survival hangs constantly in the words you say, the look you carry and the almighty opinion of your peers. It’s intense.
The front wall of the school is plastered with political slogans for freedom, declarations of love “Carolina, Te Amo –Carlos”, and a healthy amount of tags. Whoever is selling spray cans in Argentina is doing all right. Inside the lobby like a vacant warehouse. Its 721 am and freezing cold. And the kids. They stroll in with sweatshirts and attitude. Stand around the doorways of the classrooms. Those in the back corner of the educational warehouse start juggling a crumpled up newspaper like it was a futbol. It falls. One throws it at another’s head. The tallest one smacks the shortest. The little guy winds up and side kicks him back in the thigh. Another one pushes the shorty. I sigh. Lau and I sit on a cracked wooden bench waiting to start our first day as educators of a violence prevention program in Argentinean Public Schools. I bet I got those guys I think to myself. It never fails.
Five minutes later I’m standing in front of these little thirteen-year-old men and their compañera getting introduced as the no violenceia people… and they are straight up having conversations as the teacher is introducing us and as Marcela, the president of Association Pablo Nicolas is presenting our work. Maybe four out of the twenty-four in were paying attention. Damn, I think, its one of those classrooms where the air stays filled with chatter, laughter and blah punctuated by pleas from the teacher to please pay attention. No way. Not on my watch, especially when my watch says 7:33 am and I woke up at 4:30 to get here.
The intro ends, the kids still talking. We begin with a full 180 to change the vibe and I turn the volume up ten times from the teacher’s level. Laura and I introduce ourselves and explain we’re here to do something entirely different. This is no longer school. I do, when I say somos (we are), you say fuertes (strong)- somos fuertes, somos fuertes. They’re down. We form a circle and do a quick chequeo in which all 20 something of them say they either bien o con sueño (tired). Then Laura did an exercise of Image theater and they shared words that came to mind when they heard the word ‘violence.’ They easily came out with- fear, mistreatment, punches, pain, insults, and desperation. After Lau and I did an example, we all froze in an image that represented the words. They laughed a lot. Which was nice. Then we jumped to deciding how we wanted this space to be. They shared how they their favorite spaces were recess, their room, the futbol field, and the river… because in those spots, they can talk to their friends, be relaxed, there are no teachers around, people treat each other well and there is trust. And so we named the space, a dark echoing cold concrete shell of a classroom, ‘El Rio’, The River. The river was the one most people related to. And so everything Thursday morning from 7:30 to 8:30, that is what we will make it. We hot in our closing circle and locked arms and laughed more and then each said one word followed by the word si, yes to each affirm our individual commitment to making this The River how we want it. So it sounded like Freedom-yes, Peace-yes, Joy-yes, Love-yes… This was our end and our beginning. Our agreement between these twenty-four people that together we will build a space to have freedom, respect and trust. -The circle of Peace, La Plata, Argentina, aka: El Rio. When I say una, You say familia: Una Familia (one family). Always. First day: Victory. Peace Poets- 1, Cold little city outside Buenos Aires- 0. And so we begin again…
The early morning train to La Plata, a city just south of Buenos Aires, is filled with workers. It smells of cold metal and dust and then the café being sold. Laura and I look out the window with tired eyes and heavy shoulders. We on our way to work too. We sigh. Wind comes through the open doors of the train as it picks up its pace. The morning is still under dark clouds. Its cold. The kind that arrives and wraps itself around your bones. Like the mountain cold of Quito that no blanket can conquer. You have to wait until the sun rises and you can sit in its light.
Out the train window the horizon starts to turn from black to blue to mist. The idea of the sun gives us a glimmer of warmth. Two hours late we arrive at the door of our place of work… Back to school…
Leaving home in the frigid darkness of 5am reminds me of the shelter. I take a moment to picture the breakfast table of brothers in the South Bronx. They are there. Starting from zero, looking for work and for an apartment. Looking to escape the system that steps hard on their chest with every application refused, every program filled up or insufficient, every job that leads to nothing but unstable survival. So many of them have heart problems. Many that Lincoln hospital will never fix. They are there, I think. And I am here.
