Sucio = Dirty = who?

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.

El Rio, Workshop 2

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.

~*

Besitos

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...

The Sky Over Cities and Barefoot Stars

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 5^th 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.

WHERE THE RIVER BEGINS

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…

HARD METAL MORNINGS

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…

-TOGETHER IN THE DARK-

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.